Qass 
Book 




.o t /*\ 



.Ug.5- 



^ 



]1 i i 



-AV M. 



No, 



^«&&&e^&&&&&&&&$i&&$i&^&&&^&&€r&$:&^^ 



ilf 

Hi 



The death of Frederic of the Tour d'Argent, 
in Paris, and the acquisition of Giro's at Monte 
Carlo, by a British syndicate, occurred while this 
edition was in the press. 



THE GOURMET'S GUIDE 
TO EUROPE 



THE 

GOURMET'S 

GUIDE TO EUROPE 



BY 



LIEUT.-COL. 



NEWNHAM-DAVIS , 



THIRD EDITION 



NgW YORli^J^ 

BRENTANO'S 

1911 



THE LIBRARY 
OF CONGRESS 



.WASHINGTON 

m ■ III I "nT 



By tran$f«r 
U. S. SoWlrft Home Lib. 

HAT 2 3 19S? 



;1 



^^ 



r i 



^ •• 



■♦♦;• 



Printed by "Ballantyne, Hanson 6r> Co. 
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh 



The pleasu7'es of the table 
are common to all ages and 
ranks, to all countries and 
times ; they not only har- 
monise luith all the other 
pleasures, but remain to con- 
sole us for their loss 

Brillat Savarin. 



^SWwPP^^*- 



ai''^*'^f:H|fc, 



PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION 



My idea in writing this book is to give information 
to travelling Anglo-Saxons, of both sexes, who take 
an interest in the cookery and food of the countries 
they pass through, and are not content to dine and 
breakfast every day at the hotel in which they may 
happen to stay. 

In the present edition a considerable amount of new 
information regarding the bourgeois restaurants will 
be found in the Paris chapter, and the chapter on 
the restaurants of French provincial towns has been 
amplified. I have rewritten the chapter on Berlin 
from personal experience, and have dealt more fully 
with The Hague, Geneva, and the Northern Italian 
towns than I did in previous editions. I have care- 
fully gone through the book, and corrections and 
additions will be found in every chapter. I have 
added to the information concerning the dining possi- 
bilities of most towns, some slight indication of what 
amusements are to be found " after dinner," and I hope 
that this feature may prove useful. 

Once more I thank Mr. Horace Lennard for bring- 
ing up to date the Belgian chapters. 

I record with much regret the death of Mr. 



viii Preface to 'Third Editio?i 

Algernon Bastard, who was my collaborateur in the 
first edition of this book. 

I once more plead extenuating circumstances should 
there be any inaccuracies in the book, for it is very 
difficult, even with willing helpers, for one man to 
keep his eye on all the restaurants of Europe. 

With the publisher's cordial assent, no advertise- 
ments of any hotels or restaurants appear in the 
book. 

As travelling gourmets, for the good of the great 
epicurean brotherhood, have helped me in the past 
by sending me information of any new dining-places 
which can be recommended, and of any alterations 
and improvements in old-fashioned ones, so I hope 
they will continue to do in the future. I am 
particularly indebted to several German and Austrian 
gentlemen who have written to me concerning the 
chapters on their countries. Any letters addressed to ' 
me at the Naval and Military Club, Piccadilly, will 
be gratefully received and acknowledged. 

N. NEWNHAM-DAVIS. 



CONTENTS 



PARIS 

The Classic Restaurants — ^The "Smart" Restaurants — The 
Summer Restaurants — Across the River — Restaurants of 
the Parisians — Restaurants of the Quartier — Montmartre 
Restaurants — Foreign Restaurants — -The Cheap Restau- 
rants — The Restaurants of the Suburbs — The Bill and 
Tips — Parisian Clubs — " After Dinner " 



II 

FRENCH PROVINCIAL TOWNS 

Some Dishes of the Provinces — Calais — Boulogne — Wime- 
reux — Hardelot — Le Touquet — Montreuil - sur - Mer — 
Dieppe — Martin -Eglise — Puys — Pourville — Etretat — 
Havre — St. Adresse — Gonneville — Duclair — Rouen — 
Caudebec — Honfleur — Trouville — Caen — Dives — Cher- 
bourg — Granville — Mont St. Michel — St. Malo — Cancale 
— Parame — Dinard — Dinan — Roscoff — Brest — Quimper 
— Pont Aven — Quimperle^The Loire Country — Bor- 
deaux — Arcachon — Biarritz — Marseilles — Aries — Nimes 
— Avignon — Cannes — Nice — Beaulieu — Monte Carlo — 
Mentone — -The Pyrenees — Pau—Aix-les- Bains — Vichy 
— Evian ... .... 62 

III 

BELGIAN TOWNS 

The Food of the Country — Ghent — Antwerp — Spa — Ostende 

— Bruges — Heyste — Blankenberghe — Nieuport . • '33 



X Contents 

IV 

BRUSSELS 

PAGE 

The Restaurants of Brussels — ^The Clubs — "After Dinner" . 151 

V 

HOLLAND 

The Food of the Country —The Hague Restaurants — The 

Hague Clubs — Scheveningen — Amsterdam— Rotterdam . 165 

VI 

GERMAN TOWNS 

The Cookery of the Country — The Rathskeller — Beer 
Cellars — Dresden — Munich — Nuremberg — Stuttgart — 
Frankfort-on-Main — Diisseldorf — The Rhine Valley — 
Homburg — Wiesbaden — ^Baden-Baden — Ems — Aachen — 
Hamburg— Kiel ...... 174 

VII 

BERLIN 

The Classic Restaurants — The Hotel Restaurants — Restau- 
rants of the People — Military Restaurants — Cafes, 
Cabarets, and Bars — Open-air Restaurants — Clubs . 215 

VIII 

ITALY 

Italian Cookery — The Italian Lakes — Turin — Milan — Genoa 
— Venice — Bologna — Spezzia — Florence — Pisa — Leghorn 
— Lucca — Rome — Clubs of Rome — Naples — ^Palermo . 232 

IX 

SPAIN 

The Cuisine of Spain — Barcelona — The Clubs of Barcelona — 
Port Bou — San Sebastian — -San Sebastian Clubs— Bilbao 
— Portugalete — Madrid — Madrilene Clubs — Andalusian 



Contents xi 



PAGE 



27: 



Cookery — Seville — Sevilian Clubs— Bobadilla — Grenada 
— Jerez— The Clubs of Jerez— Cadiz — The Cadiz Clubs — 
San Lucar — Algeceiras— Ronda — Malaga — The Mala- 
guanean Clubs 



X 

PORTUGAL 

Lisbon — Lisbon Clubs — Cintra— Estoril — Cascaes — Oporto 
— The Clubs of Oporto — Bussaco — Pampilhosa . 



XI 

SWITZERLAND 

The Food of the Country — Lucerne — Basle — Bern — Geneva 

— St. Moritz — Davos . . . . .310 



XII 
AUSTRIA 

Austrian Cookery — Vienna — Salzburg — Baden — Carlsbad — 

Marienbad — Other Towns .... 320 



XIII 

HUNGARY 

The Cookery of the Country — Buda-Pesth — Buda-Pesth 

Clubs — Other Towns ..... 340 



XIV 

ROUMANIA 

The Dishes of the Country— The Restaurants of Bucarest — 

Bucarest Clubs — Sinaia , , , . . 346 



xii Contents 

XV 

SERVIA 

PAGE 

The Food of the Country — Belgrade — Kijievo . . . 352 

XVI 

BULGARIA 

The Food of the Country — Restaurants of Sofia — The Union 

Club 355 

XVII 

TURKEY 

Turkish Cookery — Constantinople Restaurants — Therapia 

— Constantinople Clubs ....... 358 

XVIII 
GREECE 

Grecian Dishes — Athenian Restaurants .... 365 

XIX 

DENMARK 

The Hours of Meals — Copenhagen Restaurants — The Bade- 

hotels on the Sound ....... 367 

XX 

SWEDEN 

The Food of the Country— Stockholm Restaurants — Saltsjo- 

baden — Storvik — Gothenburg . . . , '37? 



Lontents xiii 

XXI 
NORWAY 

PAGE 

The Christiana Restaurants — Throndhjem .... 378 

XXII 

RUSSIA 

Russian Cookery — St, Petersburg — Clubs of St. Petersburg 
— Moscow — The Moscow Clubs — Odessa — Kief — War- 
saw — Helsingfors — Yalta ...... 380 



PARIS 

The Classic Restaurants — The " Smart " Restaurants — The 
Summer Restaurants — Across the River — The Restaurants 
of the Parisians — Restaurants of the Quartier — Montmartre 
Restaurants — Foreign Restaurants — The Cheap Restaurants — 
The Restaurants of the Suburbs — The Bill and Tips — Parisian 
Clubs — " After Dinner." 

An Englishman who loved his Paris beyond any other 
city of the world once said to me, as we stood chatting 
in the Place de FOpera, "If you find the central spot 
of this square, you may rap your stick upon it and say, 
* This is the centre of the world.' " Paris is certainly 
the culinary centre of the world. Wherever the great 
cooks are born — and most of them as a matter of fact 
see the light in the Midi — they all come to Paris to 
learn their art, and then go out through the whole 
civilised world as culinary missionaries preaching that 
there is but one cuisine, and that the Haute Cuisine 
Frangaise. 

France is the country of good soups, of good fish, 
of good vegetables, of good fowl, of good sweets. 
Hors croeuvrc are a Russian invention, and are only to 
be tolerated when at a restaurant they keep a diner 
in good temper while the chef is cooking the fish. 
Oysters, prawns, and caviare may, I think, be excused 
from this anathema ; but the real gourmet who orders 
a dozen Cancales or Marennes with which to commence 

* A 



2 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

a dinner rarely introduces fish into his menu. Caviare, 
be it black or grey, be it sent from the land of the 
Volga or the states of the Danube, is too excellent to 
be a mere relish. It is a dish for dejeuner ; and the 
man before whom has been placed a jar of good 
caviare sunk in cracked ice, who has a fresh lime and 
some Brittany butter at his elbow, and who is brought 
relays of hot toast, may well leave the consideration 
of the plat which is to follow until his appetite for 
caviare is appeased. Curiously enough, the squeeze 
of lime or lemon juice on the caviare was not originally 
intended to give a contrast of taste. When transport 
was less rapid, the caviare which reached Western 
Europe was not always as fresh as it should be, and 
the lemon juice was used to disguise any musty taste. 
Soup, in my humble opinion, should be the hors d^ceuvre 
of a dinner ; and a thimbleful of strong hot soup to 
commence a meal would, I believe, stimulate without 
cloying, and leave a diner with an appetite unimpaired 
for the dishes that are to come. This, however, is my 
own little pet heresy, and I do not wish to insist upon 
it. Russia is the only country the soups of which 
can compare with those of France. Ever since the 
days when Henry IV., whose memory is honoured in 
the name of more than one soup, vowed that every 
French peasant should have a fowl in his pot, soup, 
from the simplest bouillon to the most lordly consommes 
and most splendid bisques^ has been better made in 
France than anywhere else in the world. 

Every great cook of France has invented some 
particularly delicate variety of the boiled fillet of sole, 
and Dugiere achieved a place amongst the immortals 
by his manipulation of the brill — I always find, may I 
say in parenthesis, that a safe card to play in any Paris 
restaurant and in any good restaurant of the provinces 
is to ask for the " sole of the house " at the fish stage 
of the dinner and the ^^fine of the house " with the 



coffee. The soles of the north of France are as good 
as any that ever came out of British waters; and Paris 
— sending tentacles west to the waters where the 
sardines swim, and south to the home of the lamprey, 
and tapping a thousand streams for trout and tiny 
gudgeon and crayfish — can show as noble a list of 
fishes as any city in the world. 

The chef de cuisine who could not enumerate an 
hundred and fifty entrees all distinctively French, 
would be no proficient in his noble profession. 
The British beef stands against all the world as the 
meat noblest for the spit, and Scottish sirloins are 
sent as far south as Monte Carlo, but the French ox 
which has worked its time in the fields gives the best 
material for the soup-pot ; and though the Welsh 
lamb and the Southdown sheep are the perfection of 
mutton young and mutton old, the lamb nurtured on 
milk till the hour of its death, and the sheep reared on 
the salt-marshes of the north, make splendid contri- 
bution to the Paris kitchens. Mutton is often de- 
scribed on the bill of fare by the name of the breeder 
of the sheep. Several of the great sheep-breeders of 
France, the Marquis de Behacque amongst them, 
have imported Southdown sheep, and the mutton 
called by their names has an English ancestry. Veal 
is practically an unknown meat in London ; and the 
calf of Pontoise, which has been fed on milk and 
yolk of egg, and which has flesh as soft as a kiss and 
as white as snow, is only to be found in the Parisian 
restaurants. Most of the good restaurants in London 
import all their winged creatures, except game, from 
France ; and the Surrey fowl and the Aylesbury duck, 
the representatives of Great Britain, make no great 
show against the champions of Gaul, the fowls of 
Mans and Houdan and Bresse, and the duck of Rouen, 
though the Norfolk turkey holds his own. 

A vegetable dish, served by itself and not fiung 



4 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

into the gravy of a joint, forms part of every French 
dinner, large or small ; and in the battle of the 
kitchen gardens the foreigners beat us nearly all 
along the line, though I think that English asparagus 
is better than the white monsters of Argenteuil. A 
truffled partridge, a partridge a la Bourguignonne^ cooked 
in a terrine with a red wine sauce, or the homely 
Perdrix aux cJwux^ or the splendid Faisan a la Financiere 
show that there are many more ways of treating a 
game bird than plain roasting him ; and a woodcock, 
in my humble opinion, never tastes so well as when it 
has been flamhe^ an auto-da-fe which takes place almost 
under the diner's nose. The Parisian eats a score of 
little birds we are too proud to mention in our cookery 
books ; he knows the difference between a mauviette 
and an alouette^ and I trust insists on his cook not 
sending him to table the skylarks, for a true gourmet 
should never encourage the slaughter of any winged 
thing that sings. Perhaps the greatest abasement 
of the Briton, whose ancestors called the French 
" Froggies " in scorn, comes when his first morning 
in Paris he orders for breakfast with joyful expectation 
a dish of the thighs of the little frogs from the vine- 
yards. An Austrian pastry-cook has a lighter hand 
than a French one, and the heathen Turk makes the 
best sweetmeats in the world, but the Parisian open 
tarts and cakes and the fr'iandises^ the creams, and the 
ice, or coupe-jacque at the end of the Gallic repast are 
excellent. 

Let me omit the regulation long moan over the dis- 
appearance of the great restaurants, the dining-places 
which made much culinary history. The Riche, the 
Cafe Veron, Hardi's, D'Hortesio's, Bignon's, the 
Trois Freres Provencaux have either disappeared or 
have been converted into brasseries or tavernes, and 
men swiJl beer in the Marivaux where poor Joseph 
flourished his knives over ducks of surpassing juiciness. 



'Farts 5 

The Maison Doree and the Grand Vefour have been 
the most recent additions to the list of casualties. At 
the Maison Doree I was one of those friends of the 
house who were allowed to choose any two dishes 
from the luncheon carte for a quite ridiculously small 
sum of money, and the old waiter who wore the 
decoration for long service treated me with as much 
respect and as great deference as though I had 
thousands of francs to spend. At the Grand Vefour, the 
house to which M. Hamel, cook to the king, brought 
in the time of Louis Philippe the surplus crockery 
from the palaces, that his clients might dine from 
royal china — but now, alas ! turned into a tavern and an 
American bar — I, while still a very small boy at Harrow, 
made my first essay in selecting a dinner at a Parisian 
restaurant. I ordered one dish, quite at random, and 
then sat, very small and rather afraid, looking at the 
mirrors and the gilding, wondering what I had ordered, 
whether it would be very long in making its appear- 
ance, and whether I should have enough money to 
pay for it when I had eaten it. When my dish did 
appear, it was a strange, dark-looking thing, which I 
eventually discovered was a rdble de lievre. I fancy 
that the stately maitre (fhotd^ who carved the dish, 
for me with all dignity, must have been inwardly 
much amused at the disappointment of the small 
patron. I had hoped that something very sweet, with 
plenty of cream and sugar in unexpected places, would 
appear, for I had chosen far down the bill of fare. 
The Grand Vefour has gone the way of all flesh, and 
the Verdiers, now that the Maison Doree is no more, 
are scattered about Paris. Casimir, the great cook of 
the Maison Doree, went to the Champeaux, and I 
have, at various times, heard of others of the family at 
the restaurant on the Isle de Jatte, where the duellists 
breakfast after scratching each other on the forearm, 
and at the Restaurant des Fleurs, which now calls 



6 The Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

itself Le Grand Vatel. But, as I have written, I do 
not propose to deliver a funeral oration over the dead 
restaurants. Some of the classic restaurants still 
survive, and happily flourish. 

The Classic Restaurants 

Two restaurants in particular, the Cafe Anglais 
and Voisin's, have undisputed right to classic honours, 
and Paillard's I think may be allowed to scrape into 
this category. 

The Cafe Anglais, the white-faced house at the 

corner of the Rue Marivaux, has a history of more 

The Cafe Anglais, than a hundred years, k was originally 

13 Boulevard des a little wine-merchant's shop, with its 

Italiens j^^j. leading into the Rue Marivaux, 

and was owned by a M. Chevereuil. The Peace of 

Amiens first brought it into favour with the English, 

and at that period the charge for a dinner there was 

three louis. The ownerships of MM. Chellet and 

de L'Homme marked successive steps in its upward 

career, and when the restaurant came into the market 

in '79 or '80 it was bought by a syndicate of bankers 

and other rich business men who placed it in the 

hands of its present lessee. The Comte de Grammont 

Caderousse and his companions in what used to be 

known as the " Loge Infernale " at the old Opera, 

were the best-known patrons of the Anglais ; and 

until the Opera House, replaced by the present 

building, was burnt down, the Anglais was a great 

supping-place, the little rabbit-hutches of the entresol 

being the scene of some of the wildest and most 

interesting parties given by the great men of the 

Second Empire. It was to the Anglais that Rigol- 

boche raced in the costume of Eve from the Maison 

Doree. The history of the Anglais has never been 



written because, as M. Burdel, the lessee, will tell 
you, it never could be written without telling tales 
anent great men which should not be put into print ; 
but if you ask to see the book of menus, chiefly of 
dinners given in the " Grand Seize," the room on the 
first floor, the curve of the windows of which look up 
t|ie long line of the boulevards, if you are shown that 
treasure you will find in it records of dinners given by 
the late King Edward when he was Prince of Wales, 
by the Due de Morny and by D'Orsay, by all the Grand 
Dukes who ever came out of Russia, by " Citron," 
and Li Hung Chang, and Le Roi Milan, by the lights 
of the French Jockey Club, and many other celebrities. 
There is one especially interesting menu of a dinner 
at which Bismarck was a guest — before the terrible 
year of course. While I am gossiping as to the 
curiosities of the Anglais I must not forget a little 
collection of glass, mostly with gold initials, and silver 
in a cabinet in the passage of the entresol. Every 
piece has a history, and most of them have had royal 
owners. The great sight of the restaurant, however, 
is its cellars. Electric lamps are used to light them, 
luminous grapes hang from the arches, and an orange 
tree at the end of a vista glows with transparent 
fruit. In these cellars, beside the wine on the 
wine-list of the restaurant, are to be found some 
bottles of all the great vintage years of claret, dating 
back almost as far as Noah's vineyard, an object-lesson 
in Bordeaux ; and there are little stores of brandies 
of wondrous age, most of which were already in the 
cellars when the battle of Waterloo was fought. 

A dreadful shock was given in the early days of 
June 1910 to the habitues of the Anglais when they 
found on the white front of the restaurant a great 
placard announcing that the building was for sale. 
The sale was necessary owing to some difficulty in 
division of the property, and was the result of the com- 



8. T^he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

plicated French law of succession. Francs 1,300,050 
were bid for the building, which passed into the 
possession of a Belgian syndicate. Till the ter- 
mination of the present lease the restaurant will be 
carried on as before. What will happen when the 
lease falls in, only the members of the Belgian 
syndicate know. 

The Cafe Anglais does not advertise itself in any 
way. Until late years its name was in very small 
golden letters on its front ; but some new glass plates 
with big lettering have now been put over the win- 
dows. A majority of people who did not know their 
Paris used to pass its white-curtained windows without 
any idea that it was a restaurant, and it still requires 
a little moral courage for a stranger to walk into an 
establishment which so obviously keeps itself to itself. 
Once inside, however, this feeling disappears ; the 
ladies in black silk who sit at a desk in the tiny hall 
facing the door smile reassuringly, and either in the 
triangular room to the right, where a gilt tripod gives 
light in the centre of the floor, or in the two little 
rooms to the left there is sure to be a table vacant. 
There is the charm of perfect quiet about the Cafe 
Anglais. No man dining there ever rushes away from 
it to go to a theatre or a business appointment. If a 
first act has to be missed, or somebody kept waiting, 
it is a regrettable necessity ; but to hurry over a 
lunch or a dinner at the Cafe Anglais would be a 
crime as dastardly as lese-majeste. 

The three downstairs rooms are all white ; the 
service is absolutely silent ; the plump head-waiter 
has learned the secret, which, until I became a 
frequenter of the Anglais, I believed was only 
possessed by the dignitaries of the Church, of being 
fat without being hot ; the linen and the silver on 
the tables are perfection. There are tiny details of 
the service at the Cafe Anglais I always enjoy : I 



'Pan's 9 

like, for instance, the heart-shaped little paper slip put 
on the neck of the bottle of any decanted wine, with 
the cru and the year noted on it. I feel personal 
satisfaction when M. Burdel, very distinguished in 
appearance, with iron-grey hair en brosse, and with the 
broad black ribbon of his eye-glasses stretching across 
his shirt-front, walks through the rooms, bowing to a 
client here, making a suggestion there. When he halts 
at my table and inquires whether I have had a good 
passage across the Channel, I almost purr with satis- 
faction. I like the presence of my neighbours at other 
little tables ; they all look as though they played some 
important part in the great world, and most of them do. 
The plats du jour at the Anglais are invariably 
admirably prepared, and it is the one restaurant at 
which I have eaten a Gigot de sept heures cooked 
as it should be. The Potage Ceremani^ made from 
the livers of fat fowls, is no longer on the daily bill of 
fare at the Anglais, a fact which I do not regret, for 
this particular delicacy used to cost £^i a plate when 
served at a banquet, and I never pay as much as that 
for my entire dinner. Duglere was the chef of the 
Anglais, M. Burdel was one of his pupils, and a Barbiie 
Duglere is one of the special dishes of the house. 
Potage Germiny used to be claimed as a dish of the 
house both by the Anglais and the Maison Doree — 
indeed, one of the MM. Verdier once told me a 
detailed story of Casimir announcing to the Marquis 
de St. Georges that he had invented the soup and 
dedicated it to him, and of the tears of joy the Mar- 
quis wept — but the Anglais can now alone assert its 
right to it as a creation. Filet de Sole Mornay^ and 
Poularde Albufera^ which is really poor little Portugal's 
one great addition to the book of cookery,^are two of 
the dishes which the Anglais cooks better than any 
other restaurant in the world, and Pomnies Anna may 
perhaps be added to this tiny list. 



lo T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

May I pause here to tell you the tale of how the 
recette of the Poularde Alhufera came to Paris. When 
in Peninsula days the French troops sacked the monas- 
tery of Albufera, the only thing of any value that they 
found was the book of recipes in the kitchen. Some 
of these were new to the French cooks, and one in 
especial of a chicken stuffed with rice proved so de- 
lectable that the recette was forwarded to headquarters 
at Paris, and duly took its place in the golden book of 
the haute cuisine. 

On the subject of the prices at the various res- 
taurants I write at the close of this chapter. The 
payment of the addition — the word is slangy, but it 
is used even at the Anglais — is a disagreeable neces- 
sity, and a polite maitre d''hotel deplores its necessity 
as much as does a satisfied client ; so I tuck the details 
away out of sight till the last moment, and only say 
now that a man with any knowledge of how to order 
a dinner and with a louis in his pocket can walk into 
any restaurant in Paris as though he were an Emperor. 

I always chuckle over a tale of three young English- 
men who, coming to Paris for the first time, thought 
that they had discovered Voisin's. They fancied that 
all the other English who had been to the French 
capital had overlooked this quiet restaurant with win- 
dows cloaked by lace curtains in the sleepy Rue St. 
Honore, and that they were likely to obtain a rough 
but well-cooked bourgeois meal there at quite a 
nominal price. The various stages of their disillusion- 
ment were amusing. Voisin's, like the Cafe Anglais, 
is a white restaurant inside; but its whiteness is 
relieved by the deep red of mahogany. It has a corn- 
Restaurant fortable brown front on the ground floor. 
Voisin, 26 Rue Like the Anglais, it had quite humble 
St. Honore beginnings, the original Voisin of 1813 
being a wine merchant in' a very small way of 
business. M. Bellanger, his head waiter, enlarged the 



T^aris 1 1 

little restaurant, but it was not until the present pro- 
prietor, M. Braquesac, took possession, after the days 
of the Commune, that the restaurant rose to its 
greatest glory. When I first saw Voisin's, it looked 
as unlike the house of to-day as can be imagined. I 
was in Paris immediately after the days of the Com- 
mune, and followed, with an old General, the line 
the troops had taken in the fight for the city. In 
the Rue St. Honorc were some of the fiercest com- 
bats, for the regulars fought their way from house 
to house down this street to turn the positions the 
Communists took up in the Champs Elysees and 
the gardens of the Tuileries. The British Embassy 
had become a hospital, and all the houses which 
had not been burned looked as thouo-h thev had 
stood a bombardment. There were bullet splashes 
on all the walls, and I remember that Voisin's looked 
even more battered and hopeless than did most of 
its neighbours. The cellars of Voisin's were flooded 
during the great rise of the Seine in the early months 
of 1 9 10, and the bins of the wonderful vintages of 
Bordeaux and Burgundies were threatened with a bath 
of icy water ; but the precious bottles were carried as 
carefully as if they were children to a place of safety 
above flood level, and were restored to their snug saw- 
dust beds again when the danger had passed. 

The diplomats have always had an affection for 
Voisin's, perhaps because of its nearness to the street 
of the Embassies ; and in the " eighties " the attaches 
of the British Embassy used to breakfast there every 
day. Nowadays, the clientele seems to me to be a mix- 
ture of the best type of the English and Americans 
passing through Paris, and the more elderly amongst 
the statesmen, who were no doubt the dashins; vouns; 
attaches of thirty years ago. M. Braquesac, grey-haired, 
and with an aquiline nose, is always, when he is in the 
restaurant, the most distinguished-looking man there. 



12 T^he Gournief s Guide to Europe 

M. Braquesac has a racing stable, as his amusement, 
and his talk to his cronies amongst the clientele of the 
restaurant is generally of Longchamps and Auteuil and 
Maisons Lafitte. Young M. Braquesac, almost as 
distinguished in appearance as his father, is always in 
evidence as the manager of the restaurant. There is 
always a feeling of calm in Voisin's. Paul, the maitre 
(Thotel^ is quite episcopal in appearance, and the head 
sommelier, whose face is round and whose hair is 
curly, is equally well favoured. From the street a 
glass door leads straight into the restaurant. Two 
dames de comptolr^ who sit at a little desk by the 
door, look as though their lives had been entirely 
free from trouble. Close to them, in one iof the 
small v^ndows, the fruit for dessert is placed. Voisin's 
has two rooms downstairs, an outer one and an inner. 
The white of its walls and the gleam of its mirrors 
are subdued by the deep red of the mahogany of 
its door and window frames. A little staircase leads 
to the rooms above. 

The great glory of Voisin's is its cellar of red 
wines, its Burgundies and Bordeaux. The Bordeaux 
are arranged in their proper precedence, the wines 
from the great vineyards first, and the rest in their 
correct order down to mere bourgeois tipple. Against 
each brand is the price of the vintage of all the years 
within a drinkable period, and the man who knew 
the wine-list of Voisin's thoroughly would be the 
greatest authority in the world on claret. 

Mr. Rowland Strong, in his book on Paris, tells 
how, one Christmas Eve, he took an Englishman to , 
dine at Voisin's, and how that Englishman demanded 
plum-pudding. The maitre d^hotel was equal to the 
occasion. He was polite but firm, and his assertion 
that " the House of Voisin does not serve, has never 
served, and will never serve, plum-pudding " settled 
the matter. 



^aris 1 3 

Voisin's has, amongst the specialties of the house, 
its own particular soup and its fillets of sole. The 
Poularde Voh'in is a most admirable bird, and its chaud- 
froids and the terrines of foie gras are world-famous. 
If the mattrc d'^hotel looks upon you with eyes of favour 
you will be presented by him with a little pink card 
folded in two on which is the menu of a dinner given at 
Voisin's on Christmas Day 1870, on the ninety-ninth 
day of the siege, and you will note that though Con- 
som?}je d^Ekphanty Le Cha?neau rot'i a Panglaise (I won- 
der whether this was a sly joke at perfidious Albion), 
and Le Chat flanque de Rats are prominent dishes, the 
wines are Mouton Rothschild 1846, Romanee Conti 
1858, Grand Porto 1827, and other great wines of 
great years. 

If the Anglais and Voisin's may be said to have 
much of their interest in their " past," Paillard's 
should be taken as a restaurant which p^iuard 
is the parent of the present up-to-date 38 Boulevard 
restaurant. The white restaurant on desItaUens 
the Boulevard des Italiens has sent out more culinary- 
missionaries to improve the taste of dining man than 
any other establishment in Paris. Joseph, who 
brought the Marivaux to such a high pitch of fame, 
came from Paillard's, and so did Frederic of the Tour 
d'Argent. Henri of the Gaillon, Notta, Charles of 
Foyot's — all were trained at Paillard's. 

The restaurant has its history, and its long list of 
great patrons. Le Desir de Roi^ which generally 
appears in the menu of any important dinner at 
Paillard's, and which has foie gras and, I fancy, the 
^'trails" of woodcock and snipe as its principal com- 
ponents, has been eaten by a score of kings at one time 
or another, his gracious Majesty the late King Edward 
heading the list. The restaurant at first was contained 
/in one small room. Then the shop of Isabelle, the 
Jockey Club flower girl, which was next door, was 



14 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

acquired, and lastly another little shop was taken in, the 
entrance changed from the front to its present position 
at the side, the accountant's desk put out of sight, 
and the little musicians' gallery built. M. Paillard 
has pleased the ladies amongst his customers by giving 
them music with their dinner. He also gives them 
music, too much music, with their supper. Paillard's 
has now a supper clientele of the most unblemished 
respectability. The great classic restaurants resemble 
Napoleon's Old Guard in that they die but do not 
surrender. The Maison Doree went to its end like 
a hero, refusing to bow to vitiated modern tastes. M. 
Paillard, however, prefers that his restaurant should 
not die, and if the modern ladies who sup like to see 
Spanish dancers gyrate while they eat their chicken, 
and are prepared to go up to Montmartre to see them, 
M. Paillard, being a gallant man, will save the ladies 
the journey to the northern heights by allowing 
dancers in his restaurant on the boulevards. All 
this savours of the modern smart restaurant, and I 
feel a doubt whether Paillard's should not be now 
classed amongst the " smart " instead of the " classic " 
restaurants. 

The restaurant as it is with its white walls and 
bas-reliefs of cupids and flowers, its green Travertine 
panels let into the white pilasters, its chandeliers of 
cut glass, is very handsome. M. Paillard, hair parted 
in the middle and with a small moustache, irre- 
proachably attired, wearing a grey frock-coat by 
day, and a " smoking " and black tie in the evening, 
is generally to be seen superintending all arrange- 
ments, and there is a maitre (Thbtel who speaks 
excellent English. 

Amongst the specialties of the house are Pomme 
Otero and Pomme Georgette (both created, I fancy, by 
Joseph when he was at Paillard's), Sole Paillard^ 
T'lmbale de queues d^ Ecrevisses Mantua^ Filet Paillard^ 



^aris 1 5 

Rouennais Paillard, Terrine de Fo'ie Gras a la gelee au 
Porto, Perdreau et Caille Paillard. 

The " Smart " Restaurants 

" Breakfast che-z Henry, dine at the Ritz, and sup 
at Durand's," was the advice once giv^en me by a 
man who knows his fashionable Paris Henry's, Place 
thoroughly; and it is difficult to better Gaillon 
it. Henry's is in the Place Gaillon. There is another 
Henry's, an English hotel and bar, in the Rue Volney. 
Henry's is on the site of a much older restaurant, 
the Maison Grosstetes, which had its days of celeb- 
rity under the Second Empire. Henri Drouet, a 
former maitre d''hotel at Paillard's, restored the for- 
tunes of the restaurant and partially rebuilt it ; and 
the present proprietor, M. Marius Durieux, who 
wears Piccadilly- weeper whiskers, who is his own 
maitre d^hotel, and who learned his business at Pail- 
lard's and at the Gaillon, has further decorated and 
enlarged the restaurant. The plate-glass windows are 
curtained with lace, a little shelter of gilt metal and 
glass is over the door, pillars of white and grey marble 
with copper capitals stripe the front with soft colour. 
Go in through the revolving glass door and you find 
yourself in luxury. Two rooms thrown into one 
stretch before you, another room is to the left. The 
restaurant is white in colour, but its chandeliers of 
cut-glass, its etageres and flowers, its liberal orna- 
mentation, keep it from being severe. The tables 
are put as close as possible to each other all round 
the three rooms, the darnes de comptoir are given a 
tiny desk against the wall, the chasseur hurries back- 
wards and forwards through a small door with coats 
flung over his arm and hats balanced on sticks and 
umbrellas. Henry's is always full, the proprietor is 
always in despair because he cannot accommodate all 



1 6 The Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

his would-be clients, and his patrons who have secured 
tables beforehand feel that they have shown singular 
acuteness in doing so. The cuisine of Henry's is 
excellent. A number of dishes named after the Rue 
Port Mahon, which is on one side of the restaurant, 
are some of the Gaillon specialties, and Consomme 
Fortunato, Crepes des Gourmets^ the Poires Gaillon^ and, 
of course, the sole of the house, are excellent. I 
know of no restaurant where the hors dCceuvre are 
more excellent and varied, where the sweet dishes, 
creams and open tarts, and fruit are more tempting. 
At Henry's there is always on the bill of fare a larger 
number of plats du jour^ ready at any moment, than 
at any of the other restaurants of the first class. The 
fly in the milk to me in the Place Gaillon is that, 
the dining tables being so close together, the serving 
tables have to be placed in the centre of the rooms, 
and no serving table can ever be a beautiful or appetis- 
ing sight. M. Marius has now extended his activities 
to the Chateau de Madrid on the border of the Bois 
de Boulogne, where he has built an hotel and rebuilt 
the old restaurant. 

La Rue's and Durand's are on either side of the 
Rue Royal, where it joins the open space before the 
church of La Madeleine. Both have a few little 
tables and chairs outside, forming what is known 
Durand's, Place as a terrasse ; both are in high favour 
de la Madeleine with travelling Britons; both are as 
neat as new pins ; a porter of noble proportions is 
ready to call up the motors at each door ; a little 
page, who likes to be called Chasseur^ is alert to do 
any small service which may be rewarded by a tip. 
Durand's is to the east of the Rue Royale, and 
carriages cross the pavement to reach it. Jules 
Simon in marble looks longingly over his shoulder 
at the restaurant. On entering, a great pane of 
glass to one side [forms a transparent wall to one of 



T*aris 1 7 

the restaurant's rooms. On a shelf against this glass 
are the little baskets of apples and pears and other 
fruits. The da?nes de comptoir are enthroned in the 
entrance hall. Durand's has made enlargement after 
enlargement, and its interior at first sight looks as 
though one room were reflected in three or four 
great mirrors. In reality, three or four rooms have 
been opened one into the other. The waiters are 
mostly plump, and are all polite ; a table is swiftly 
pulled out, and space made for him who would break- 
fast or dine, and the gar^on, who has a quick eye for 
the nationality of the clients, and knows the shade 
of politics of his French customers, puts a newspaper 
— British, American, or French — on the table. One 
of the proprietors, brisk little men both, with a napkin 
over one arm, glances to see that the table is all in 
order, a comfortable maitre d^hotel bows as he offers 
the carte de jour^ and behind him the black-aproned 
sommelier waits for you to make a choice of wine. 
Durand's has, of course, its specialties. Its Consomme 
Baignense^ its Barbue Durandy its Poulet Saute Grand 
Due, and its Soufle Pole Nord are excellent. Durand's 
clients are drawn from many nations, and many of the 
Parisians breakfast and dine and sup there. A Parisian 
in Paris is more particular than the most strait-laced 
of the travelling British and Americans where he 
takes his women-folk at supper-time, and Durand's 
at that hour combines smartness and respectability. 
The Brav' General was a good patron of Durand's, 
and many of his friends, grey-headed, military-looking 
gentlemen, still breakfast there. It was, I believe, in 
one of the little private dining-rooms at Durand's that 
General Boulanger sat and doubted whether he should 
initiate a coup d^etat, and finally went home to bed. 
The Cafe Riche also claims to have been the house 
in which the General failed to make up his mind 
— perhaps the would-be Dictator had two evenings 

B 



1 8 T'he Gou7nnef s Guide to Europe 

of irresolution. I give the menu of the table d'hote 
supper Durand's gave its customers one Christmas 
Eve, that being the night when all Paris, respect- 
able and not quite respectable, sups at one cafe or 
another : — 

Consomme de Volaille au fumet de Celeris. 

Boudin grille a la Parisienne. 

Ailerons de Volaille a la Tzar. 

Cailles a la LucuUusi 

Salade Durand. 

Ecrevisses de la Meuse a la nage. 

Crepes Suzette. 

Dessert. 

Champagnes. 

Clicquot Brut, Pommery Drapeau Americain. 

G'^'' Fine Napoleon. 

The boudin is the indigestible sausage, in which pigs' 
blood is an ingredient, which is a necessary portion 
of every Christmas Eve feast. The proprietors of 
Durand's now own the little pavilion which Paillard 
opened in the Champs Elysees. 

The interior of La Rue's is pleasantly bright. Its 
seats of crushed strawberry colour, its pillars with the 
La Rue's, Place deep pink silk running half-way up 
de la Madeleine them, its mirrors with cut-glass elec- 
troliers on their surface, make it a typical Parisian 
restaurant. In one corner a band plays quite in- 
ojfFensively. When the original proprietor of La Riie's 
retired with a fortune in 1909, M. Vaudable, a former 
maitre d'hote! in the restaurant, and M. Nignon, who 
is an cx-chef de cuisine of the Hermitage at Moscow, 
stepped into his shoes, and the cookery of the restau- 
rant became to a great extent Russianised. If I were 
to publish in full the leaflet which gives the " Mets 
Russes Nationaux " to be obtained at La Rue's, I 
should practically give a list of most of the plats in the 
Russian cuisine. The Russian soups Rassolnik and 



^aris 1 9 

Stch'i and Salianka^ sturgeon cooked in various forms, 
and Koid'ih'ianka of fishes, ^raz'i Popoloskiy ^zou a la 
Tartare^ Scfwchlik Pokarsk'i^ and a dozen entremets 
which are delightful to the tastes, but the names of 
which read like different varieties of sneezes, are all 
on this list. Where Cubat failed Nignon has suc- 
ceeded, and the Parisians flock to La Rue's to eat the 
plats of their allies the Russians. 

A word of advice should be addressed, however, to 
the ynaitre d' hotel 2.t La Rue's, and indeed to the maitres 
(Vhotel of all fashionable restaurants in Paris, not to 
treat cavalierly people whom they do not recognise as 
frequent customers, but who may have been in past 
days very good friends of the house. Such a man, a 
friend of mine, lunching at La Rue's, ordered an apple 
for his guest, an abbe, and when the bill was brought 
called attention to the fact that 4 francs had been 
charged for the fruit, he supposing that two apples 
had been put down on the bill. The ?naftre criiotel 
did not behave at all politely, and the reduction of 
50 centimes which the house offered to make, was 
proffered with such a bad grace that it was refused. 
As a matter of fact at that time the charge for an apple 
at the Cafe Anglais and most other smart restaurants 
was 3 francs. This incident shows that it is wise to 
ask the price of fruit at La Rue's before ordering it. 

The Cafe de Paris, in the Avenue de I'Opera, 
is at breakfast and dinner time a restaurant much 
frequented by cosmopolitan Paris, and q^^^ ^^ p^j.^g 
the cuisine is excellent. It is wise if Avenue de 
you wish to breakfast there to tele- I'^pera 
phone m advance for a table. At supper-time the 
butterfly ladies of Lutetia are to be seen there m all 
their glory. The building is wedge-shaped, and two 
rooms fork right and left from the entrance. The 
room to the right is the one most in favour with 
the Parisians. The leader of the band of Tziganes, 



20 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

a pale young man, with a mass of red hair, who is 
dressed in ordinary evening clothes, is a favourite 
object for the pencil of Sem and other Parisian 
caricaturists. It is quite possible that if there is a 
rage for Apache dances, or for Spanish dances, or for 
Otaheitan dances, one of these dances may be per- 
formed by professionals at i a.m., for the Cafe de 
Paris, content that its excellent cookery shall keep it 
in the front rank at the breakfast and dinner hour, 
despises none of the methods which supping places 
adopt to attract customers. 

The Ermitage Restaurant at the Rond Point of 
the Champs Elysees used to be a smart restaurant, 
much frequented by people of position in the world 
of sport. Chevillard was the original proprietor. It 
then passed into the hands of Emile Aoust, whom 
Englishmen will remember at the Amphitryon Club, 
and from this to those of M. Courtade, a Belgian. 
The restaurant at the time I write is closed ; but it 
is sure sooner or later to be reopened, as its position 
is an excellent one. 

The newest of the smart restaurants is the Daunon, 
which has sprung up in the road of that name near 
The Daunon, its junction with the Avenue de I'Opera. 

Rue Daunon The restaurant is a large hall, lighted 

from above, with walls of light colours ornamented 
with Wedgwood plaques. There are green marble 
pilasters with gilt capitals, and great flower baskets 
on the wall which conceal electric lamps. The carte 
is chiffrcy the prices reasonable, and the attendance 
good. After supper there are " attractions " which 
take the shape of dancing girls. 

Of the restaurants attached to hotels I do not 
propose to write at length. At the Elysee Palace 
Eiys^e Palace, in the Champs Elysees the restaurant 
Champs Elysees {§ ^n excellent one, and there is also 
a grill-room on the London model which is very 



Varis 2 1 

popular with theatre-goers both at dinner and supper 
time. 

The restaurant of the new Meurice Hotel in the 
Rue de Rivoli is making a bid to be considered 
something better than a mere appanage The Meurice, 
of the hotel. The room is a very fine ^^^ ^® Rivoli 
one, with marble pilasters and cut-glass electroliers, 
and a good picture in the circular panel above the 
fireplace. Its cooking is decidedlv good. 

I find that on days when there is racing in the Bois 
an appreciable number of parties on Restaurant des 
their way to the course call a halt at Champs Elysees, 
the Restaurant des Champs Elysees, Champs Elysees 
which is a part of the Hotel d'Albe, to breakfast. 

The restaurant of the Hotel de Crillon, the great 
palace at the north-west corner of the Place de la 
Concorde, is the newest of the notable Hotel de Criiion 
dining places attached to hotels. The Place de la Con- 
restaurant is on the first floor in the ^^^^^ 
Salon des Aigles of the Dukes of Crillon, and the 
cuisine is excellent. 

The Restaurant Volney is an offshoot of the Chat- 
ham Hotel, but has a separate entrance in the Rue 
Volney. It is a snug dining place, with The Volney, Rue 
red carpets, red screens, a scarlet band Volney 
in a crimson alcove, and lamps which are apparently 
of mother-of-pearl. There is an abundance of flowers 
always on the tables. I can recommend the sole of 
the house, served with truffles and the flesh of lobsters. 
My dinner on the one occasion I have dined there 
cost me 1 8 francs, a moderate sum for quite a good 
meal. 

The Ritz Restaurant holds an exceptional position 
in the dining world of Paris. The Ritz Hotel is 
not a large one, but the Ritz Res- The Ritz, Place 
taurant is of a goodly size, and therefore Venddme 
the Ritz establishment is a restaurant firstly and an 



22 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

hotel secondly. It is the restaurant of the smartest 
foreign society in Paris, and the English, Americans, 
Russians, Spaniards, dining there always outnumber 
greatly the French. It is a place of great feasts, but 
it is also a restaurant at which the maitres d^ hotel 
are instructed not to suggest long dinners to the 
patrons of the establishment. In M. Elles' hands 
or that of the maitre cChotel there is no fear of 
being " rushed " into ordering an over-lengthy repast. 
This is a typical little dinner for three I once ate at 
the Ritz, and as a feast in the autumn it is worth 
recording and repeating : — 

Caviar. 

Consomme Viveni. 

Mousseline de Soles au vin du Rhin. 

Queues d'Ecrevisses a TAmericaine. 

Escalopes de Riz de veau Favorite. 

Perdreaux TrufFes. 

Salade. 

Asperges vertes en branches. 

Coupes aux Marrons. 

Friandises. 

In the afternoon the long passage with its chairs, 
carpets, and hangings, all of crushed strawberry colour, 
is filled with tea-drinkers, for the " five o'clock " is very 
popular in Paris, and the Ritz is one of the smartest 
if not the smartest place at which to drink tea. In 
the evening the big restaurant, with its ceiling painted 
to represent the sky, and its mirrors latticed to repre- 
sent windows, is always full, the contrast to a smart 
English restaurant being that three-quarters of the 
ladies dine in their hats. Sometimes very elaborate 
entertainments are given in the Ritz, and I can 
recall one occasion on a hot summer night, when 
the garden was tented over and turned into a gorge 
apparently somewhere near the North Pole, there 



^aris 23 

being blocks and pillars of ice everywhere. The 
anteroom was a mass of palms, and the idea of the 
assemblage of the guests in the tropics and their 
sudden transference to the land of ice was excellently 
carried out. 



The Summer Restaurants 

Of all the pleasant impressions that Paris leaves on 
the mind of any one not too blase to be receptive the 
remembrance of breakfasts and dinners eaten in the 
open, with delightful surroundings of flowers and green 
turf and great trees, is one of the pleasantest. The 
little tables, the white-aproned waiters scuttling over 
the gravel, the checker of light and shade, the colour 
and movement are all redolent of the spirit of Paris. 
Breakfast at Ledoyen's on the day of a vernissage 
at one of the Salons, dinner at the Armenonville or 
Pre Catalan or Chateau de Madrid on a hot June 
night, tea at the Cascade after a race day at Long- 
champ, are part of the. life of all those who are in 
the movement ; and to watch the bourgeoisie enjoying 
themselves whole-heartedly at the Porte Jaune in the 
Bois de Vincennes, to sit on the terrace at the Pavilion 
Henri IV. at St. Germain and to look over the plain 
and the twisting rivers towards Paris, to breakfast at 
the Pavilion Bleu at St. Cloud, and afterwards see the 
merry-making of the bridal parties that have come out 
from the city, are each a separate delight. 

The Champs Elysees hold several clusters of the 
summer restaurants, which open as soon as the chestnut 
trees are in blossom. Ledoyen's, on the south side 
of the central road, has been a favourite dining-place 
for more than half a century. Guillemin, who was 
cook to the Due de Vincennes, brought the restaurant 
into great favour about 1850. Ledoyen, whose name 
the restaurant bears, was originally a plongeur^ and 



24 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Surope 

it may be that his early experiences in a cellar gave 
him the knowledge of wine which enabled him later 
Ledoyen's, in life to lay down one of the best 

Champs Elysees cellars of wines in Paris. Ledoyen's is 
built on the plan of most of the open-air restaurants. 
A gay little pavilion, which contains the kitchen and 
some salons, and round three sides of which runs a 
glazed shelter, a refuge should the weather be cold 
or rainy, is the hub of the restaurant. Flowering 
creepers and grape vines are trained up the supports 
of the shelter, and fuchsias and other flowers give 
a plenitude of colour. In front of the little house is 
a gravel space, which is enclosed either by a privet 
hedge or by shrubs in green tubs. Trees large or 
small give shade to the enclosure, and the white- 
clothed tables are dotted here and there. Ledoyen's 
is not an expensive restaurant, and all the worlds of 
Paris go there. On a Sunday you will see a grey- 
headed old retired officer giving breakfast to his son, 
who is in the uniform of a military college, and the 
little clerk entertaining his fiancee and his future 
mother-in-law, as well as the well-to-do Parisian and 
his wife, and the inevitable parties of Americans and 
English. At Ledoyen's the waiters push about great 
dishes on high cradles, and the joints of the day are 
carved at the little tables. To say that one always 
gets one's food at the out-of-doors restaurants as hot 
as one does where one is nearer to the kitchen would 
be to say the thing which is not ; nor is the service 
always as quiet-footed and unhurried as in the classic 
restaurants ; but the out-of-door restaurants vary as 
much as the indoor ones do in character — and in 
price. 

The Pavilion d'Elysee and Laurent's, on the north 
side of the central road, near the Rond Point, are 
quite first-class in every way, even as to prices. The 
Elysee is a charming little building, and is a magnified 



jewel-case in stone and glass and metal. It has its 
pink and white awnings for hot days, and its in- 
terior is light and bright and summery. pavillond'Elysee, 
Paillard opened it, and then parted with Durands, 
his rights to a company, and the com- Champs Elysees 
pany made it over to the proprietors of Durand's. 
The proprietorships and managements of the Parisian 
restaurants change as often as do those of the Paris 
theatres, and only the tax-collectors try to keep well 
informed as to the various permutations and combina- 
tions. The Elysee remains what Paillard made it — 
a very charming little summer restaurant, with excel- 
lent cuisine and service, and prices to match. 

Laurent's Restaurant, built after the model of a 
Roman villa, stands far back from the centre road, 
and is so enclosed by trees and thickets that one has 
to look for it to find it. About once every three years 
it is thoroughly renovated and redecorated, and it is, as it 
has always been, one of the pleasantest as well as one 
of the quietest of outdoor restaurants. Laurents, 
The azaleas and the rhododendrons Champs Elysees 
which are about it clothe it with colour in the 
spring and early summer, and the acacia trees 
keep its little space of gravel in pleasant shade. For 
many years I used to dine at Laurent's every Grand 
Prix night with a well-known explorer and traveller, 
and a Canard Pornpeiane^ a wonderful cold duck with 
black and red figures designed upon its snowy breast, 
was always one of the dishes on the menu of my 
host's dinner. A little band, which plays quite in- 
offensively, is the latest addition to the attractions of 
Laurent's. Partly for old association's sake, partly for 
its quiet, partly for its good cuisine, I always have a 
warm corner m my heart for Laurent's. 

The restaurant of the Ambassadeurs is on summer 
nights one of the dining-places to which the cosmo- 
politan world of Paris flocks. The ex-proprietors and 



26 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

present managers of Maxim's, the supping-place in the 
Rue Royale, are the lessees of the Ambassadeurs, and 
TheAmtoassa- ^^^ cuisine is very good. The tables 
deurs, Champs sought after are those of the front of the 
Eiysees balcony which faces the stage, and to sit 

after dinner and smoke and drink coffee and listen to 
and watch the performance is one of those combina- 
tions of pleasant things obtainable in Paris, at a price, 
but which are unknown to us in London. The Am- 
The Alcazar, bassadeurs has a little garden behind 

Champs Eiysees it, which is a pleasant place at break- 
fast-time. The Alcazar has a restaurant and a gar- 
den which is under the same management as the 
Ambassadeurs. 

The Pre Catalan is the latest addition to the smart 
restaurants in the Bois, though some of the older ones 
have lately been rebuilt. The Pre Catalan used to 
The Pre ^^ ^ farm where children and a few 

Catalan, Bois fashionable ladies used to drink milk in 
de Boulogne ^j^^ early mornings, and there always 

had been a chalet restaurant at its entrance. The 
proprietor of one of the most popular Paris newspapers 
saw that the children were monopolising one of the 
most charming enclosures in the Bois, and he obtained 
the right to build a restaurant and lay out a garden 
there. The restaurant is a great banqueting hall with 
a cupola in the centre. Large mirrors on one side 
reflect the long windows on the other, and the big 
room, all white and ornamented with great taste, 
might well have been copied from some palace. The 
servants wear quiet handsome liveries, and the carte 
du jour has the prices marked against the various dishes, 
information which some of the restaurants do not give 
to their clients until the bill is presented. The Pre 
Catalan has its lawn, which is a favoured spot at tea- 
time on race days. Both the Pre Catalan, and the 
restaurant next on my list, the Armenonville, are now 



^aris 27 

controlled by M. Charles Mourier of the Cafe de 
Paris. 

The Pavilion d'Armenonville, another of the Bois 
restaurants, has always been in high favour with smart 
Paris. It has been the custom since Armenonville 
its building that men shall wear dress Bois de 
clothes when dining at this restaurant, ^o^io^^ie 
an unwritten rule which has not been enforced in 
any other restaurant. When the very broad glass 
shelter which runs round the house is filled with 
diners, the ladies in dinner dresses and plumed and 
feathered hats, the men in their evening black and 
white ; when the tables are heaped with flowers; when 
the trees outside are garlanded with coloured lanterns ; 
when the two bands, playing alternately, make gentle 
music which does not interfere with conversation, 
then Armenonville forms a scene brilliant enough for 
any theatre to stage. The luxurious surroundings 
have, of course, to be paid for, but though the prices 
at these little palaces in the great wood are high, they 
are not exorbitant. 

The Chateau de Madrid used to be a collection of 
old buildings grouped about a courtyard in which 
were trees. Under these trees were chateau de 
little iron tables ; Japanese lanterns Madrid, Bois 
were amidst the foliage; and there de Boulogne 
was a pleasant sensation in dining thus in a half light, 
with the buildings around all in deep shadow. The 
old buildings have now disappeared, and have been 
replaced by a brand new white restaurant, with great 
plate glass windows and large mirrors, and decoration 
of trellis work, and by a new hotel which stands facing 
the road. The trees still remain, and under them on 
hot evenings the little tables are still set. But the 
charm of the old chateau has disappeared. There is 
a blaze of electric light, and a band plays all the airs 
of the moment. M. Marius, of Henry's of the Place 



2 8 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

Gaillon, is the proprietor of the new hotel and new 
restaurant, and the prices are those of the Place 
Gaillon, and also, happily, so is the cookery. The 
chateau is just outside the Bois, and the steam trams 
of the Chemin de Fer du Bois run past it. One break- 
fasts there very pleasantly on race days. 

The Pavilion Royal, at the near end of the lake in 
the Bois, used to be a bourgeois restaurant, where one 
Pavilion Royal, might breakfast and dine in compara- 
Bois de Boulogne tively humble company at a compara- 
tively humble rate. It, however, has been rebuilt and 
redecorated, has become smart, has an excellent cook, 
and its prices have risen with its reputation. 

The Chalet du Cycle, which also used to be a very 
bourgeois restaurant, has also now grown proud, and 
calls itself L'Ermitage de Longchamps. 

The Restaurant de la Cascade is a gay little cafe 
near the racecourse, and many people breakfast on its 
lawn on race days. 

The Chalet des Isles is a favourite lunching-place 
when the lakes are frozen. 

In the Avenue Victor Hugo is Carron's, a simple 
Carron's ^"^ cheap restaurant, which is some- 

Avenue Victor times patronised in cold or wet weather 
^^^° by men going to the races. A gar- 

gantuan dinner can be obtained there at five or six 
francs. 

The Select Bar is a little restaurant, and is rather off 
the beaten track, but the St. Cloud tramcars pass it. 
"Le Select" ^^ ^^ kept by two sisters who give their 

Bar, Quai de personal attention to everything with 
Billancourt excellent results. A very quiet, little- 

frequented eating-house it was, and the prices very 
moderate. It has of late, however, sprung into fame, 
and on days when there is racing at St. Cloud, it is 
wise to retain a table there in advance by telephone. 
The specialty of the restaurant is the garhure^ the 



>avoury mess of the south, but two days' notice must 
be given for the preparation of this deHcacy. 

Across the River 

The Tour d'Argent on the Quai de la Tourelle, 
nearly opposite the island on which Notre Dame 
stands, has been made known to the Tour d'Arg-ent 
world by its proprietor, Frederic Quai de la 
Delair. It is a small old-fashioned Tourelle 
house, with a narrow entrance hall and a low-ceilinged 
parlour. I can remember the days when its floors 
were spread with sawdust, but it has outgrown that 
sign of simplicity. Frederic much resembles the 
pictures of Ibsen. He has a wave of hair, now 
whitened and rather thinned by the years, curving back 
over his head, and flowing whiskers. A chat with the 
master of the restaurant is an amusing part of a lunch 
Dr dinner. There is a famous portrait of Frederic 
painted by one of his friends, an artist ; and I once 
had the satisfaction of comparing the picture and the 
original. Frederic's daughter held the picture, and 
he, having passed a hand over his hair and having 
spread out his whiskers, stood close to the canvas, 
assuming the expression which the artist had repro- 
duced. Frederic's conversation is amusing and in- 
structive. He has some curious theories. He holds 
that different kinds of fuel should be used for the 
roasting of different kinds of meat, believing that the 
spiced scents of some woods transmitted in the cook- 
ing add to the pleasure of eating all kinds of game. 
Frederic is not alone in holding this belief, for the 
old Roman gourmets thought as he does, and spent 
large sums of money on the woods for their kitchen 
fires, as do also the Japanese, that very practical 
and up-to-date nation believing that burning sticks 
transmit their essences to that which is cooked before 



30 T'he Goiirmefs Guide to Europe 

or over them. Every visitor to the Tour is given a 
paper whereon are printed the " creations faites a la 
Tour d'Argent par Frederic." The great cook — for 
Frederic goes into the kitchen to give the finishing 
touches to the dishes for appreciative cHents — has 
named many of his inventions after well-know^n people 
who are, or have been, good patrons to the establish- 
ment. (Eufs General Williams^ Filet de L'levre Arnold 
White^ Filet de Sole Lo'ie Fuller^ are three out of two- 
score dishes to which celebrities have become god- 
parents. A poet has sung Frederic's praises, for the 
Marquis de Lauzieres de Themines has put into 
archaic rhyme a eulogy of Frederic and his works 
and a description of serving Canard a la Presse : — 

" La d'un canard, donte reste la carcasse 
Dans line boite, on la broie, on la moud. 
Un rude engin I'ecrase/.la concasse. 
II resulte un jus exquis au gout." 

There are many claimants to the honour of having 
discovered the method of squeezing the last drop of 
juice out of a duck, but the real discoverers were the 
poor peasants of the Midi, who smashed with stones 
the carcases of their tough and skinny ducks to extract 
all the essences. One of the great maitres d' hotel 
whom Paillard's has sent forth — whether it was 
Frederic or Joseph or Charles or another matters 
little — remembered this custom of his p(^ys, and 
the silver turnscrew was the result. Joseph, whose 
carving and squeezing of the duck was quite a sacri- 
ficial ceremony, generally used two ducks, one well- 
cooked for the meat and the other part- cooked for the 
juices. Frederic gives on his leaflet wild ducks, wood- 
cock, Le Poulet Belgrand^ La Langouste TVinterthur^ 
and F'leds de Mouton Poulette as the dishes which have 
made the fame of the house ; but the Filet de Sole 
Cardinal^ little fillets pressed into crayfish tails and 
served with a red crayfish sauce, is the best known of 



^aris 3 1 

all Frederic's creations. Frederic is a believer, as 
all great maitres crhbtel are, in a very short dinner. 
When the Secretary to the Behring Sea Conference 
interviewed Frederic, at Lord Hannen's request, told 
him that the members of the two Missions would 
dine at the Tour d'Argent, and sketched out a 
twelve-course dinner with two soups, two entrees, 
and a sorbet in the middle of it, Frederic asked him 
very politely to take his diplomatists elsewhere, for 
such a barbarous meal would never be served on the 
Quai de la Tourelle. 

Frederic has a short way with all Philistines, even 
if they be of the gentler sex. I once took a lady to 
breakfast at the Tour — she had selected it as being 
close to the Morgue, and thought that a good lunch 
would be a cheerful beginning to her sight-seeing — 
and Frederic himself had come to take the order. 
" Eggs, a bird, a vegetable, an entrcmet^'' I had said, 
as if I were inventing a new drawing-room game, 
and Frederic had run his fingers through his wave 
of hair and had gone into a reverie — the reverie 
which precedes some wonderful combination. I in- 
sinuatingly said, " For the eggs," as the cue for his 
first pronouncement. Frederic breathed hard and 
looked at the ceiling. " Uffs a la plat^' said the lady, 
who fancied we were both at a loss as to how eggs 
could be cooked. Frederic came back from the clouds 
and o;ave the ladv one look. It was not a look of 
anger or contempt, but simply an expression of pity 
for the whole of her sex. 

The Restaurant de Lapcrouse on the Quai de 
St. Augustine is old-fashioned in appearance, and its 
first floor is a rabbit warren of little Laperowse 
dining-rooms decorated with scenes Quai St Augus- 
of rural merrymaking and landscapes. ^^^® 
This restaurant is a favourite lunching-place of the 
lawyers whose business lies hard by in the Palais de 



32 l^he Gonrmefs Guide to Europe 

Justice. The students in the " Quartier '* when they 
are in funds sometimes dine at this restaurant, which 
they call " Le Navigateur " — there is a portrait of 
the old sea-dog and a sketch of his ship the Astrolabe 
on the carte du jour. Some of the specialties of the 
house are Filets de Sole Laperouse^ Bouillabaisse^ which 
is served always on Fridays, and Tripes a la mode de 
Caen^ provided on Thursdays. The connoisseurs say 
that the Maison Joanne in the Rue Montorgueil 
cooks the finest tripe in Paris ; but the little upstairs 
room in that establishment near the Halles is not 
to be compared in comfort with the rooms of the 
" Navigateur," and I have tasted the tripe at both 
establishments and could detect no difference. The 
burgundy at the Laperouse is excellent ; Corton and 
Chambertin of 1878, Richbourg 1874, Clos Vougeot 
1893, and a beautiful Romance 1887. Its Bordeaux, 
its Chateau Yquem in particular, and its wines of the 
Rhone are also to be recommended. 

Foyot's, where one lunches well if one is going 
to spend an afternoon in the Luxembourg,- and 
Foyot, 33 Rue where one dines before going to the 
de Tournon Odeon, is quite an aristocratic restau- 

rant. It is one of the restaurants which M. Charles 
Mourier controls. The restaurant is at the corner 
of the Rues de Tournon and Vaugirard, and when 
the Anarchists thought that to blow up a restaurant 
would be a warning to aristocratic diners, Foyot's 
appeared to them to be very handily situated for their 
purpose. The bomb exploded, but the only person 
hurt was an Anarchist poet who had been so false to 
his tenets as to have taken a very pretty lady to dine 
a deux in this restaurant of the well-to-do, and to 
have given her Truite Meuniere to eat. Needless to 
say, Paris laughed at the incident. Potage Foyot^ Riz 
de f^eau Foyot^ Homard Foyot^ and Biscuit Foyot are 
some of the dishes of the house, and are all excellent. 



T^aris 3 3 

Of the restaurants of the " Quartier " I write in 
conjunction with those of Montmartre. 

The Restaurants of the Parisians 

In labelling some restaurants as being Parisian I 
only wish to indicate that they are more patronised 
by the French people and less by the cosmopolitan 
world of Paris than the "smart" restaurants are. If we 
start from the Madeleine Square and walk up the 
boulevards towards the Place de la Bastille, we shall 
pass most of the best known of the typically French 
restaurants. In the Madeleine Square Lucas, Place de 
is Lucas's. It used to be a very quiet ^^ Madeleine 
and rather sombre restaurant, and its clients were very 
steady-going, a number of the better-class visitors from 
the provinces making it their headquarters at meal- 
times. Large windows, m nouveau art frames, have 
now taken the place of the old-fashioned casements, 
and the interior has been rather garishly decorated. 
I suspect the prices of having gone up a step when 
the alterations were made, but the „ 
cuisine remains quite excellent. The Ang-iaise, 
Harengs Lucas are the most appetising 28 Rue Boissy 
hors crceuvre I know, and in the cellar "^ 

there are some fine old cognacs which are not 
at all unreasonable in price. In the Rue Boissy 
d'Anglas, behind Lucas's, is the Taverne Anglaise, a 
quiet establishment, the patrons of which say that they 
get Lucas's cookery at considerably less than Lucas's 
prices. 

A little way up the Rue Royale is Weber's Res- 
taurant, which at one time was known as His Lord- 
ship's Larder, and where the cookery webers, Rue 
used to be semi-British. Weber's Royale 
is entirely French now, and has swallowed up 
one or two neighbouring establishments, including 

* c 



34 'T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

an Irish American bar. A detective of European 
fame used to find it useful to dine in this bar and 
to listen to the conversation of other diners. The 
name of the plat du jour was always on a bit of 
cardboard which was hung over the bar. One day 
the detective found that D.D.S. was the dish of the 
day, and inquired its meaning. "S stands for spy," 
said the man behind the bar. Sherlock Holmes 
looked at the faces which surrounded him, and did 
not ask for an explanation of the other letters. That, 
however, is very ancient history. Weber's to-day is 
a large bright restaurant much patronised by French- 
men belonging to the liberal professions, by the Depu- 
ties, who find this restaurant within easy distance or 
their Parliament house, and by English resident in Paris. 

The Taverne Royale is close to Weber's. I do 
not propose to give a list of the Tavernes, which 
hold to the Paris restaurants somewhat the same 
position the grill-rooms hold to the London ones. At 
the Tavernes Royale, Tourtel, Brebant, simple food, 
sufficiently well cooked, and admirable light beer are 
obtainable, and after some days of eating rich food in 
the temples of the higher art it is pleasant to rest one's 
digestion by a cup of simple clear soup, the thigh of a 
fowl, and a slice of cheese at a Taverne. 

Viel's, or to give it its alternative title, the Restaurant 
de la Madeleine, is on the boulevard of that name. 
It is a white-faced restaurant, and its interior is also 
Viel's Restau- white. Its prices are moderate, and I 
rant, Bde. de have found it a pleasant restaurant at 
la Madeleine ^j^j^j^ ^^ ^^p^ ^^^ -^ j^ p^^j-onised by a 

pleasantly Bohemian world of authors and actors and 
actresses and artists, who go there to avoid being 
stared at and to eat their evening meal in peace and 
quietness. 

The Taverne Olympia, which opens its doors at 
5 P.M. and closes them at the hour of early breakfast, 



^aris 3 5 

has its principal entrance in the Rue Caumartin. 
The Taverne is an underground place of feasting. 
Its prices are moderate, and its simple Taverne 
food is well cooked. There are two or Olympia, 
three of the little theatres in the Rue ^^® Caumartin 
Caumartin, and the Taverne benefits by its propin- 
quity to them. 

On the Boulevards des Italiens and Capucines the 
restaurants crowd together. Every big cafe has a 
restaurant as part of its establishment. The Cafe 
de la Paix boasts a grill-room ; the private rooms at 
the Cafe Rougemont are exceedingly well decorated; 
at the Americain, where the dining clientele is quite 
different from the supping one, great joints are wheeled 
up to the tables and carved there. Julien's, the La- 
fitte, the restaurant of the transformed Cafe Riche, 
which is making a bid, a not very successful one, to 
become a light-hearted supper restaurant — all have 
their crowd of French diners. 

In the Rue Port Mahon is Cerny's Bar, which has 
taken the place of the Cabaret Lyonnais, a house 
where tench used to be cooked with cerny's Bar, 
infinite skill, and where a still pink Rue Port Mahon 
champagne used to be the favourite wine. Cerny's 
Bar is very central for the theatres. It is managed 
by two ladies. The clientele of the restaurant con- 
sists of racing men, young men and their lady 
friends, actors and butterfly ladies. Every one 
seems to know every one, conversation flies across 
the snug dining-room, and the diners throw poker 
dice to see who shall pay for the dinners. On this 
account it is rather embarrassing for a solitary stranger 
to visit ; but beyond an expression of surprise at seeing 
a strange face, he will not be disturbed. No a la carte 
dinner is served, only a six franc table d'hote meal 
which is always excellent and of reasonable length, 
and is served at lightning speed to any man who tells 



36 T'he Goiirmef s Guide to Europe 

the waiter he is in a hurry. The restaurant is closed 
in August, and during parts of July and September. 

A curiosity in restaurants is Blanc's, in the Rue 
Favart, close to the Opera Comique. Its specialities 
Blanc's, ^^e the dishes of the Midi, and those 

Rue Favart vf\\o are curious in such matters can 

taste there the Brandade^ and Aioli^ and Bourridi\ and 
Bceiif en dauhe without making the railway journey to 
the land of Tartarin. 

In the Passage des Princes, but a stone's throw from 

the boulevards, is Noel Peters', an excellent specimen 

xT^ 1 Tj«+«^c- of the bourgeois restaurant. I am 

Noel Peters , t> r 1 1 -vt 1 

24 Passage des sorry, however, to nnd that JNoel 

Pnnces Peters' now describes itself as an 

American restaurant, hoping to draw into its net 
the thousands of Americans who drift through Paris, 
and who would sooner eat dry hash and crackers than 
the most elaborate dishes of the French cuisine. The 
rooms are decorated with reproductions of the tiles 
and stencilled patterns of the Alhambra at Granada, 
the colour of which is very gorgeous and very beautiful. 
A large sum of money was expended on this decora- 
tion, and it is well worth the while of any one 
lunching or dining at the house to walk round the 
rooms and to look at their adornment. The prices 
are reasonable, and the service quiet. The fish dishes 
at Noel Peters' are always excellent, and the sole of 
the house is to be warmly recommended. The sole 
of all soles is, however, to be found further up the 
boulevards, at the Restaurant Marguery. M. Marguery, 
who died in the winter 1909—10, is mourned as a 
benefactor to Paris, for he it was who took a lead 
when the boulevards had to be decorated in honour of 
any great celebrity, and he was always to the fore in 
any big scheme of charity. If there were starving poor 
he fed them, and his name headed a list of subscribers 
on the occasion of any great catastrophe, such as a big 



fire or a flood. Marguery's, which has banqueting 
rooms as well as public dining-rooms, is next door to 
the Gymnase Theatre, and is always crowded and 
bustling. The .S^/^ylf«r§-«£'ry, the secret Marguery. 
of which is the very strong fish stock used 34 Boulevard 
in its preparation, is a noble dish, and so ^onne Nouvelle 
is the Barbue Marguery^ and there are a score of other 
creations of the house ; but it was on the back of his sole 
that M. Marguery rose to great wealth and eminence. 
But before proceeding as far up the boulevards as 
Marguery's I should have dealt with the restaurants 
of newspaper land which lie round and about the 
Faubourg Montmartre. If you walk up Restaurant 
the Rue de Richelieu from the boule- Gauclair, 
vards you come, after a hundred yards ^^® ^^- ^^^^ 
or so, to what appears to be one of the ordinary 
Parisian drinking houses. The bar, however, is of 
marble, and if you look up to the first floor you see an 
illuminated sign telling that this is the Restaurant 
Gauclair. Round the corner in the Rue St. Marc is 
the entrance. There is a small white room on the 
ground floor, and this is the favourite dining-place. 
There are three other dining-rooms on the first floor, 
and a little salon for private parties. The house at 
meal times is always in a bustle, and resonant with the 
voices of the waiters shouting orders down speaking- 
tubes to the cook in the basement. The cookery ot 
the Gauclair to-day, under M. Maurice, is very much 
what it must have been when the restaurant was first 
founded in 1810. It is the good bourgeoise cuisine, 
everything excellent of its kind. Nor is it likely to 
deteriorate, for most of its clientele are the gentlemen 
who drive quills and occasionally wield the ^' epee de 
combat " on behalf of the TempSy the Matin^ and other 
great papers which have their oflSces in the neighbour- 
hood. Most of these gentlemen are gastronomes ot 
the highest order. 



38 The Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

Beauge's is another quiet, essentially French res- 
taurant in this central quarter. It shows a brown 
face, its principal entrance, and windows with lace 
curtains to the Rue St. Marc, and it has another en- 
Beauges, trance in one of the arcades behind the 

Rue St. Marc Varietes, its face turned towards the 
arcade being rather forbidding in appearance. It was 
founded in 1848, and except that it is lighted by 
electricity, must now be very much as it was when 
first built. The street entrance leads into a little 
ante-room where cold meats and tarts and fruit are set 
out temptingly. The tables are placed very close 
together in the little rooms on the ground floor, and 
the lady at the desk is squeezed up against the window 
in her little pen ; but the restaurant has a dignity of 
its own, and the plump proprietor is efficient though 
unhurrying. It has its " dishes of the house." There 
is, of course, a Sole BeaugCy and there is a Filet cle 
Barhue Beauge and Rognons Beauge^ and a very 
special Tarte Beauge, The patrons of the restaurant 
are like its cookery, comfortable and unpretentious. 

Lapre's, in the Rue Druot, next door to the Figaro 
offices, was originally an oyster shop, and still retains 
a little oyster bar in its front of light oak. Little 
Lapre's, curtains of green silk and lace shelter 

Rue Druot diners and those who sup at Lapre's 

from the eyes of the curious outside. A little grotto 
and creepers on trellis and baskets of illuminated 
flowers form part of the adornment of the first room. 
In the second room are more illuminated bouquets of 
flowers and mirrors in Oriental frames. Lapre's is 
open all night long, and is much frequented by 
journalists and also by pretty ladies. It has its 
specialties, which are mostly of fish and oysters, and 
lobsters and langoustes. It has a dozen various 
methods of cooking shellfish, and its oyster soup and 
its Filet de Barbue are both excellent. 



Tarts 3 9 

Boilave's, just off the Faubourg Montmartre, at the 
corner of the Rue Montyon, has oysters in baskets, 
and bottles and shell-fish in its windows. Boilave's, 
It would be taken by the uninitiated to ^^^ Montyon 
be a bar, but in the side street is an entrance to the 
restaurant, and the dining-rooms will be found on the 
first floor. Boilave's holds in Paris very much the 
position that the Cheshire Cheese did in London 
before it was discovered by the American tourists. 
The Redacteurs-en-Chef and Secretaires de la Re- 
daction congregate there. Only women cooks are 
employed, and the cuisine is kept rigorously bour- 
geoise, none of the foreign introductions which have 
been accepted by the haute cuisine being permitted. 

Midler's, in the Rue Pasquier, which is another 
journalistic resort, is one of the few Miiller's, 
remaining little "dives" which never Kue Pasquier 
close. Of course the Coq d'Or, the entrance to the 
restaurant of which is in the Rue St. ^ ^.q^. 
Marc, is the best known of all the Rue Montmartre 
resorts of Parisian journalists. It is and Rue St. Marc 
part cafe, part restaurant, the restaurant being de- 
corated in the nouveau art style, while the cafe is all 
of dark woods. 

Maire's, at the corner of the Boulevards St. Denis 
and Strasbourg, is the connecting link between the 
smart restaurant and the bourgeois one. At one time 
it used to be very smart indeed, but its cuisine then 
was no better than it is now. If a Frenchman is 
taking his wife to the Theatre Antoine or the Scala, 
he dines previously at Maire's. There j^^ire 
are many dishes of the house, all good. 14 Boulevard 
The poulet Maire is an excellent bird, ^*- ^^^^^ 
there is no better fillet of beef than that which bears 
the name of the house, and its ^ole a la Russe is excel- 
lent. There is on the wine list a Beaujolais which is 
named Charbonnier, and which is, in a way, connected 



40 lihe Gourmet' s Guide to Sw^ope . 

with the rise of the house from very small beginnings. 
The first proprietor of the restaurant found in the 
cellar of what had been a small wine-shop rows of 
bottles under a heap of charcoal. He called the wine 
Charbonnier, and its fame went abroad. The present 
Charbonnier is the successor of that first famed Beau- 
jolais. I am told that Maire's under new manage- 
ment hopes to recover its former supper trade. 

There are restaurants still further up the boule- 
vards which deserve notice. When the Folies 
Dramatiques or the Ambigu Theatres have, either of 
Gosselin, them, a successful play, the Restaurant 

50 Rue de Bondy Gosselin, a quiet little a la carte estab- 
lishment at the corner of the Rues de Bondy and 
de Lancry, reaps a harvest ; and if any adventurous 
British theatre-goer ever journeys so far as the Theatre 
Dejazet, he may safely dine at the Restaurant Bon- 
Bonvalet valet, on the Boulevard du Temple. 

29 Boulevard The Bonvalet, which is painted brown 
du Temple outside up to the third story, and which 

has some big saloons for marriage feasts and banquets, 
is a house with some history attached to it. Under 
the name of the Cafe Turc, it was a fashionable 
gathering-place in the days of the First Empire. 
Ladies used to go there to sup, and as a concession to 
these fair visitors no smoking was allowed in the cafe. 
The Bonvalet provides table cChote meals as well as a 
la carte ones, and I have dined there in the days of my 
youth very satisfyingly for three francs. 

Les Quatre Sergents de Rochelle, named after the 

heroes of the " Conspiration de la Rochelle," whose 

fame has been perpetuated by Eugene 

Serg-ents, '^^e, is the last restaurant 1 need men- 

3 Boulevard tion on the boulevards. It is on the 

Beaumarchais -d i j r> i • t • n 

Jooulevard Beaumarchais. it is all 

white outside, and cream and gold within. A picture 

of the four gallant sergents, who were so basely 



^an's 4 1 

betrayed by Goupillion, clinking cups, is on the face 
of the restaurant. Inside, the wine-growers and mer- 
chants and buyers from the great depot across the 
river, fine, fat, bull-necked gentlemen, eat rich meats 
and drink generous wines. A /i/et dc bceuf at the 
Quatre Sergents always seems to me to be more juicy 
than any I get elsewhere, and the restaurant has a 
good cellar of Burgundies. 

Of restaurants away from the Grands Boulevards 
the Boeuf a la Mode, the Regence, and the Cham- 
peaux deserve special mention. The first is in the 
Rue Valois, which runs down one side Boeuf a la Mode, 
of the Palais Royal. Its signboard, 8 Rue de Valois 
which is of an ox garlanded with flowers, has a his- 
tory. When the restaurant was first established in 
June 1816 and hung up its sign of an ox dressed 
in garments of the fashion of the day, the Comte 
Decazes, the then chief of the Paris police, denounced 
the inn-keeper to the king as a revolutionary, 
and was commanded to inquire into the matter of 
the seditious sign-board, " for," the order ran, " the 
ox, the symbol of force, is dressed in red cashmere, 
with a straw hat having white plumes and a blue 
ribbon, and this hat, which obviously represents the 
crown, is falling off." The proprietor of the res- 
taurant was held to have been prompted by no 
treasonable design in his choice of a sign-board, but 
flowers were at once painted in place of the fashionable 
clothes. It is quiet and quite comfortable. When 
I first knew it the walls of its rooms were either 
ochre-coloured or covered with green trellis work, 
but now they have become fashionably light in tint. 
The dish from which the restaurant takes its name 
is always on the bill of fare, and is served with 
due dignity on silver plates. I always find the 
cuisine at this restaurant excellent, and the prices 
moderate. It is an establishment at which I often 



42 77/6' Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

see English ladies lunching without escort, and the 
proprietor, who is immensely proud of being allowed 
to supply our Queen Mother with woodcock pates, 4 
Champeaux. speaks English fluently. The Cham- ' 

13 Place de la peaux is the restaurant of the raris 
Bourse Stock Exchange, being in the Place de 

la Bourse. Its dining-room is a winter garden, with 
trees, palms, hanging baskets, a fountain, and an 
abundance of flowers as decorations. It was at the 
Champeaux that the Chateaubriand was invented, and 
the cuisine has always been of the best. I need 
hardly pause to tell my readers what a real Chateau- 
briand is, but I find that even in Paris any thick 
steak is called by that name. The real Chateaubriand 
was invented for the great man of that name by the 
first Champeaux. It is a steak of great thickness 
with two thin slices of rump-steak tied above and 
below it. These slices are burned in the cooking 
and are thrown away, the steak done-through being 
passed over a bright fire before being served, to brown 
it. When Casimir, the celebrated cook, left the 
Maison Doree, he went to the Champeaux. At 
lunch-time the restaurant does a great trade, but by 
the dinner hour the bustle of the day has ceased, and 
one dines both leisurely and well. The cellars of the 
establishment contain some very fine wines. There 
is a pretty story connected with this restaurant. 
Champeaux, its founder, as a poor boy came to Paris, 
starving and without a sou. A kindly restaurateur 
gave him at daybreak a dish of broken food. When 
he himself was prosperous and a restaurateur he 
ordered that all the food left over should each morning 
at daybreak be given to the hungry poor, and this is 
still done. 

The Cafe de la Regence dates back to the year 
1 718, and it has some very interesting relics of past 
glories kept as curiosities. It has kept abreast of the 



Varis 43 

times, and flames with much light outside at night. 
It has a little room off the cafe with mirrors and 
panels painted with flowers, and with ^^^^ ^^ i^^ 
leather-covered seats against the walls, Regence, Rue 
where excellent bourgeois dishes are ^*- ^0^°^® 
served to its excellent bourgeois clientele. It is an 
a la carte restaurant. Its prices are moderate. The 
cafe is in the Rue St. Honorc, almost opposite to the 
Comedie Fran^aise. All the world knows Maxim's 
as a rather noisy supping place, where Maxim's, 
the ladies are not all of the "upper Rue Royale 
ten " ; but comparatively few people know that it is 
a quiet but not unamusing restaurant at lunch and 
dinner time, and that its cookery is noticeably good. 

There are a dozen other restaurants away from 
the boulevards which deserve a word : sylvain's, 
Sylvain's, for instance, in the Rue 12 Rue Halevy 
Halevy, which at one time was the chosen supping 
place of the butterfly ladies, but which now is chiefly 
celebrated for an excellent brand of old cognac (it has 
lately changed hands, and M. Jarandon, the new pro- 
prietor, has smartened up the house and advertises a 
" symphonic orchestra" and a "terasse exotique") ; the 
big Brasserie Universelle in the Avenue de I'Opera, 
which gives its clients a choice of fifty hors dceuvre; and 
the Restaurant de la Rotonde in the Boulevard Hauss- 
mann — all three have faithful and admiring clienteles. 

If you are going by a mid-day train from the Gare 
St. Lazare, you can breakfast in reasonable com.fort at 
the Restaurant Mollard, facing the station, or at the 
Restaurant de la Pepiniere, a rotisserie which Mr. 
Roland Strong was the first Englishman to discover, 
and which has since prospered exceedingly. The food 
there is very cheap, and the game and poultry are excep- 
tionally well cooked. The Restaurant Lequen, facing 
the Gare du Nord, is also a well-managed establish- 
ment. 



44 ^/^^ Gourmet' s Guide to Europe 



The Restaurants of the Ouartier 

Of the restaurants of the Quartier, Lavenue's, 
opposite the Montparnasse station, is one of the best. 
Lavenue ^^ ^^^^ ^ Z2iik^ which is quite gorgeous, 

68 Boulevard and in the three h'ttle rooms at the 
Montparnasse \^2.z\i some of the most celebrated men 
of the world of art — Rodin and Falguiere, and Jean 
Paul Laurens and Bonnat and Whistler — used to meet 
to breakfast and to talk art. At the Cafe Soufflot 
Cafe Soufflot ^^ budding doctors and the students 
Boulevard St. of thp Polytechnic hold their feasts; 
^^*^^®^ and at Thirion's, on the Boulevard St. 

Germain, you will find half the young British and 
American art students in Paris at breakfast. Thirion's 
looks like a cheap photographer's studio, for its walls 
Thirion Boule- ^^^ chiefly of glass. A bill of fare is 
vard St. Ger- pasted on the window-panes of the 
^^^^ ground floor giving the plats de jour 

and the prices. Just inside, Madame, plump and 
smiling, sits at her desk. The waiters rush back- 
wards and forwards, doing wonderful balancing tricks 
with piles of plates and mugs of beer, the chickens 
stray in from the back yard and pick up crumbs, 
and a great noise of jovial Anglo-Saxon speech drowns 
the clatter of knives and forks and plates. Thackeray 
used to breakfast at Thirion's when he was an art 
student, and Dickens knew the little restaurant well. 

MONTMARTRE RESTAURANTS 

There are many places where one may dine, and 
dine well and cheaply, in the Montmartre district ; 
Rat Mort, Place but different establishments gather in 
Pigalle a yeiy different clientele at different 

hours of the evening. At the Rat Mort, in the Place 



PIgalle, early in the evening artists and artists' models 
and other people of the Butte dine and pay 2.50 f. 
for their dinner. Later in the evening the butterflies 
of Paris take possession of the restaurant. p^\;^'^yQ de 
So it is w^ith the Abbaye de Theleme, Theleme, Place 
almost next door to the Rat. At 7 p.m. ^^^^^^ 
it has its diners, none of w^hom is overburdened with 
money. At 2 a.m. Grand Dukes and millionaires 
from South America and the young men about town 
of all nationalities, and actresses and cocottes de grande 
marque occupy all the tables. 

There is a third restaurant in the Place Pigalle in 
the same building as a little music hall ; a restaurant 
which has led a short and chequered life. The police 
thought that the suppers at a louis a head which were 
graced by the presence of ladies in the costume of 
Eve were a scandal, and closed the restaurant for a 
time, but it has now reopened on far more respectable 
lines, and describes itself as Pigal's. The music hall 
is now occupied by a cinematograph show. 

At the restaurant of the Place Blanche many of the 
well-known artists breakfast and dine, and the onion 
soup there is celebrated. Next door to ^af^ ^^ laPiace 
the Bdite au Fursy, the little theatre Blanche, Place 
where Fursy sings his Chansons Rosses ^i^^<^^® 
and the Poetes Chanteurs and a pretty actress or two 
play impudent little revues, is a restaurant which, I 
believe, is owned by the directors of the Treteau de 
Bal Tabarin, where there are pictures Tabarin, Rue 
of nymphs on the walls, and where a ^^^^^i® 
simple dinner can be eaten with amusing and Bohemian 
surroundings. The Bohemianism of the place becomes 
overwhelmino; later in the evenina;. 

All the restaurants on the heights are not Bohemian : 
some of them are quite sedate. I used at one time 
to dine occasionally at Le Pere Lathuille, a comfort- 
able old-fashioned restaurant which possessed a pare, 



46 T'he Goiir?7Jefs Guide to Europe 

which was really only a garden, but which had 
an historic interest, for it was there that the Count 
de Neipperg used to meet Queen Marie Louise. 
Le Pere, however, has disappeared, the restaurant 
and pare having been obliterated by a huge music- 
hall. A pleasant old-world restaurant is Au Pere 
Pere Boivin, Boivin, in the Avenue de Clichy. Its 

6 Avenue Clichy service is somewhat slow, but its 
cookery is good and its prices moderate. It has a 
good cellar of red wines, and it has a larger selection 
of the wines of Touraine and Anjou than is to be 
found elsewhere in Paris. Its Burgundy is excellent 
and cheap, and its old brandy is excellent and rather 
expensive. Various plats of veal kidneys are its 
specialties, and are excellent. The downstairs room 
is rather small, but there is a large room above. In 
this room on Saturday evening are often to be found 
wedding parties of the tradespeople of the quarter, 
and the feasts are amusing to watch. Le Pere 
Boivin is 'about fifty yards from the Clichy station 
of the Metro. 

Under the theatre and dancing-room of the Moulin 
Rouge, a place of entertainment I need not describe, 
Moulin Rouge, is a supper and dining hall opened in 
Place Blanche the early days of 1 908 with a great 
flourish of trumpets. Its decorations are gorgeous, 
and it has several orchestras. When last I saw this 
hall it had been converted, permanently or as a 
temporary measure I know not, into a ball-room. 



Foreign Restaurants and Oyster Bars 

If the foreigner in Paris wishes to eat the dishes or 
his own country, Lutetia shrugs her pretty shoulders 
and permits him to do so. Jews, Turks, infidels, and 
all the outlanders, can dine on food cooked after their 



^Paris 47 

national manners, if they will. If an American longs 
for dry hash and corn cakes he will find them at 
Leon Caquet's Restaurant in the Rue Daunou. 
Leon has succeeded Vian, who catered Leon's, 22 Rue 
with wonderful success for the English- Daunou 
speaking colony during the dark days of the siege. 
The Americans who always cluster in the morning 
in and round the Banking Agency at the corner of 
the street as often as not go over to Leon's for 
breakfast, and the proprietor, who is a good business 
man, always has two or three typical American dishes 
ready on his bill of fare. Leon's is a small restaurant, 
one little room on the ground floor and another in 
the entresol^ but I should fancy that it must be a gold 
mine to its owner. 

A very Parisian restaurant, which has been partly 
captured by the United States, is Prunier's, in the Rue 
Duphot. It is the aristocratic oyster and snail shop 
of Paris, and it has attached to it prunier, Rue 
a very busy restaurant, which does a Duphot 
great trade during the months with an r in them. 
Outside the establishment is a long counter, on which 
are thousands of oysters of all the kinds beloved by 
Frenchmen and foreigners, and half-a-dozen men are 
busy all day long opening them and packing them in 
little baskets for the en v'llle trade, or giving them 
over to the waiters for the customers in the restaurant. 
The rooms on the first floor are quite gorgeous, but 
the snuggest room is on the ground floor, a little 
brown red-curtained chamber, with a sawdusted floor, 
where you may see fat Burgundians eating the rich 
snails of their native province, drawing the long 
brown, steaming, gelatinous things out of silver bowls 
with silver two-pronged forks. The Americans do 
not go to Prunier's to eat snails, but they find there 
oysters cooked in the various styles to which they are 
accustomed across the Atlantic, Prunier imports 



48 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

Blue Points, his broiled lobsters are excellent, and his 
chef will fry, or scallop, or broil, or stew oysters as well 
as any cook above whom the Stars and Stripes wave. 
I am sufficiently patriotic to prefer a Colchester Bag 
to a Boston Steak, but the latter combination of good 
beef and good oysters is to be obtained in perfection 
at Prunier's. 

Another restaurant which has an oyster bar in the 
front of its premises is Le Grand Vatel in the Rue St. 

T.PvoT,H vPtPi Honore, a house which has had a 
Le Grand Vatel, ' . a u d 

275 Rue St. chequered existence. As the Kes- 

Honore taurant des Fleurs it made a bid to 

be one of the supping-places of Paris. Then it 

changed its name and adopted the American cuisine. 

It next adopted the Russian cuisine. It seems now 

to exist quite happily with oysters and the French 

cuisine as its strong card. 

Drouant's Restaurant, which began as an oyster-bar, 
Drouant. Place faces Henri's across the Place Gaillon. 
Gaillon Its fare is simple and cheap, and its 

oysters excellent. It merits discovery by Anglo-Saxons. 

There are scores of British bars in Paris where an 
Englishman, if he desires a chop, can get one, but 
most of the English in Paris are quite contented with 
plain French cookery. The Italians, on the other 
hand, patronise the Italian restaurants, and even the 
French acknowledge that an Italian cook fries well, 
and that the Risotto^ with its various seasonings, the 
many different forms which the Paste Asciutte takes, 
and the Minestrone and the Fr'itto M'lsto^ are good 
dishes. There are half-a-dozen Italian restaurants 
in the centre of Paris, but I have only eaten meals 
Restaurant ^^ ^^° ^^ them — the Restaurant Italien, 

Italien, Passage which is in the network of galleries 
du Montmartre behind the Varietes, and Sansiarto's, in 
the Rue St. Augustin. The first-named was the res- 
taurant at which Rossini used generallv to breakfast, 



^aris 49 

and I believe it was there that he invented the com- 
bination of force-meat and macaroni which he taught 
the chef of the Maison Doree to make, and which 
bears his name. The Restaurant Italien has many- 
mirrors and a frieze of Italian landscapes. Great 
Chianti flasks stand in plated tripods on a shelf, and 
on the desk, behind which two comfortable ladies in 
black are enthroned, are two great bowls filled with 
flowers or bright-tinted foliage. The waiters all wear 
moustaches. This, until three years ago, was a proof 
evident that they were not Parisians ; but since the great 
strike every waiter in Paris may grow a moustache if 
he wishes to, and many of them have done so. On 
Monday, at the Restaurant Italien, you will find 
Lasagne Passticciate as the plat du jour^ on Tuesday 
Osso BucOy on Wednesday Risotto a la Mila?iaise, on 
Thursday and Sunday Ravioli and Timbale Milanaise^ 
and on Friday a selection of Italian dishes of fish. 
The Zahajone^ the Italian egg-nogg, 'which can be 
drunk either hot or cold, is admirably made at the Res- 
taurant Italien. Minestrone is the soup of the house. 
Sansiarto's is the home of Neapolitan sansiarto, Rue 
cookery, for Sansiarto came from St. Augustin 
Naples, and so did his successor Bernasconi, and all 
the dishes of the south, the Mozarelle in Carozza^ 
the Pizza alia Pizzaiola, and the other plats of that 
sunny land, are obtainable there. The Posilippo of 
the house is excellent. 

The Spanish restaurant which bears the name of 
Senor Don Jose Roblez Ruiz, in the Rue de Helder, 
is an excellent restaurant in which to Roblez, 14 Rue 
study the Spanish cuisine, for the oil de Helder 
used there is above reproach, and the garlic is not too 
much insisted on. The restaurant has rooms both 
on the ground and first floors, and the decorations 
are brilliantly- coloured pictures of the modern 
Spanish school. When a pretty lady, her hair 

D 



50 T'he Gour?nefs Guide to Europe 

piled high after the Andalusian fashion, sits at the 
little desk, with the plates of oranges and apples before 
her, and the patchwork of a rich-coloured landscape 
behind her, she forms quite a perfect study of Spanish 
life. An old waiter, with the head of a Roman 
senator and a method of talking French which recalls 
the hard click of the castanettes, will always advise 
the novice as to what he should order, and tell him 
how the dishes of the day, the Gu'n'iUio^ the Cocido, 
the Arro%^ or the Bacalao^ are prepared. Senor Don 
Jose had a fine cellar of Spanish wines, and Leon, 
who has succeeded him, sees that both the cookery 
and the cellar of the house are kept up to the mark. 

There are several Austrian and Hungarian res- 
taurants in Paris, the most typical one being that in the 
Widerman, 5 R^^ Hauteville, kept by M. Widerman, 
Rue HauteviUe where floors and walls are of comfortable 
brown, and seascapes form the decorations. All the 
appetising snacks the Austrians love — the smoked 
goose's breast, the little sausages, the many cold pre-, 
parations of fish — are to be found here ; and the 
Restaurant cuisine is that of Vienna. The Res- 

Tch^que, 7 Rue taurant Tcheque, kept by Madame 
dePortMaHon YiM%2k, in the Rue de Port Mahon, 
almost opposite to Cerny's Bar, which has replaced 
the Cabaret Lyonnais, is celebrated for its Gulyas. 

Greeks in the Rue des Ecoles, Turks in the Rue 
Cadet, and other Orientals, have their own res- 
taurants in various parts of Paris, mostly across the 
bridges ; but the man who faces the delicacies of the 
near East, as served in the West, requires a stomach 
of the poet's triple brass. 

The Cheap Restaurants 

A word as to the very cheap restaurants of Paris. 
The Bouillons Duval and the Bouillons Boulant are 



^aris 5 1 

extremely cheap a la carte establishments, and two 
francs goes a long way towards obtaining a satisfy- 
ing meal. Of the many very cheap table d'hote 
establishments, Philippe's, on the first floor of a 
house in the Palais Royal, is a typical Philippe, Palais 
one. Half-pay officers, authors, and Royal 
journalists, and a great number of clerks and other 
men of the pen, patronise Philippe's. The custom 
there was* for the clients of the establishment to sit at 
long tables. Directly all the seats at a table were 
filled the waiters took round the two soups, of which 
a choice was given, and the dinner commenced. 
Nowadays small tables have replaced the real table 
(Vhote. The charge for lunch is i f. 60 c, for dinner 
2 f . 10 c. 

I should say a word for the table (Fhote breakfasts 
both at the Grand Hotel and at the Continental. 
Each is an excellent 5 francs worth. 

The Restaurants of the Suburbs 

The Pavilion Henri IV., on the terrace of St. 
Germain, where every travelling Briton pavilion Henri 
and American breakfasts once during iv., St. 
his summer stay in Paris, is " run " by ^®^"iam 
the management of the Champeaux, and one gets 
very excellent cooking and service in consequence, 
the prices not being at all exorbitant. One groanj, 
sitting at the little tables on the terraces and looking 
at the view, to think of the chances some of our hotels 
near London, with even finer views, throw away 
through lack of enterprise. 

The Pavilion Bleu at St. Cloud, at the foot 
of the terrace slope, and having a fine view of the 
Seine, is a cheerful little restaurant pavillon Bleu, 
with good cookery and a capital cellar St. Cloud 
of wines. M, Moreaux, who is a power in the 



52 T^he GoiiDiief s Guide to Europe 

world of restaurants, has, or had, an interest in the 
restaurant ; he bought many of the bins of fine wine 
at the sale of the Maison Doree and sent them out to 
St. Cloud. The wedding parties which patronise the 
cheaper restaurants in the town are a never-ending 
source of amusement. 

The Pavilion de Belle Vue, which has a splendid 
view over the Seine, is also on the wes- 
^ ^ ^^ tern side just outside Paris. IV^ Poullard 
has acquired this restaurant. 

The Porte Jaune, on an island in one of the lakes 
of the Bois de Vincennes, is a merry restaurant. The 
Porte Jaune P^'^^es are cheap, the food is plain but 
Bois de sufficiently well-cooked, and its great 

Vincennes attraction is that breakfasting there on 
a Sunday or on a holiday one is right away from the 
tourist's beaten track, and that one can see the people 
of Paris enjoying themselves at their ease. Another 
little cafe restaurant on the island in the Lac de St. 
Mande in the Bois de Vincennes is also quite an 
amusing place to visit. 

At the much-advertised Casino of Enghien-les- 
Casino, Enghien- Bains there is a restaurant overlooking 
les-Bains ^^g lake, where the cookery is good, 

and the prices at a corresponding height. This is 
the menu of a dinner at which I was one of the 
guests, which was a very carefully ordered and well- 
cooked and well-served feast : — 

Hors d'oeuvre. 

Consomme Madrilene. 

Creme de poisson Soubise. 

Barbue a la Russe. 

Selle de Behaque a la Montmorency. 

Poularde en cocotte Grande Cercle. 

Aubergines Cochachinois. 

Profiterolles Dcsir du Roi. 

Friandises. 



Van's 5 3 

At Fontainebleau the Savoy Hotel is a new modern 
hotel, and its cuisine is quite first-class. It is some dis- 
tance both from the town and chateau, savoy Hotel, 
This hotel makes very substantial de- FontaineWeau 
ductions, both for rooms and meals, to golfers who 
come to play on the Fontainebleau links. 

The cuisine of the Hotel de France et de I'Angle- 
terre, an old house, with furniture and engravingjs 
which are quite in keeping with the ^^^^^ ^^ Fran^® 
palace across the way, is decidedly good, et de I'Ang-le- 
The meals are a la carte^ and the prices *?^^®' ^o^*^i^®" 
are high. The attendance is good, and 
people who go to Fontainebleau to visit the chateau 
will find it a capital though expensive place at which 
to breakfast. 

Of the accommodation and cookery in the surround- 
ing villages, an artist, who knows the forest well, writes 
thus to me : " At Barbizon the Hotel des Charmettes, 
and at Marlotte the Hotel Mallet, are fairly comfort- 
able and picturesque inns, though apt to be over- 
crowded in the summer. In fine w^eather meals are 
served under an awning in the garden, and the prices 
are quite moderate. They do not pretend to be any- 
thing but inns, and the company is usually somewhat 
mixed. At Samois-sur-Seine the Hotel Beau Rivage 
is a small but comfortable hotel, with a terrace on 
which meals are served. The terrace has a delightful 
view of the river." 

The Golf Club of Fontainebleau has a good club- 
house, where an excellent 3-franc lunch is served. 
It is possible to dine there on giving The Golf Club, 
notice. The subscription is 125 francs Fontainebleau 
a year for men, 100 francs for ladies, and 200 francs 
for double tickets. For a month, a quarter, a week, 
the subscriptions are in like proportions. For a day 
the fee is 5 francs. The links are open all the year 
round. 



54 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

At Versailles the classic restaurant at which to 
lunch is that of the Hotel des Reservoirs, Madame 
Hotel des ^^ Maintenon's old villa. All the 

Reservoirs, crowned heads who visit the palace 

Versailles ^^^ given an official lunch at the 

Reservoirs. Below is the menu of dejeuner offered 
there by the President of the Republic to King 
Edward and Queen Alexandra on 4th February 
1907:— 

Hors-d'oeuvre varies. 

CEufs brouilles pointes d'asperges. 

Filets de Sole Mornay. 

Noisette d'Agneau. 

Pomrties de terre nouvelles. 

Chicoree a la Creme. 

Poulardes froides. 

Salade. 

Pots de creme, vaniile et chocolat. 

Desserts varies. 

This is an excellent menu to suggest for any 
large party. My experience this year of the restau- 
rant of the hotel, which has a big glassed-over balcony, 
is that the prices are quite moderate, but that the 
service is rough. In old days the waiters in black 
ties and dress coats had the dignity which comes of 
serving in a house which entertains kings. But they 
have been told so often to " hustle along " by Ameri- 
can patrons that they now almost fling the food at 
their clients. 

The Hotel des Reservoirs now has a rival in the 

newly-built Trianon Palace Hotel at the corner of 

the park. The restaurant of this hotel 
Trianon Palace i 1 • ^ ^1 • 

has a long open-air terrace, the views 

from which are agreeable, and on this terrace a 6-franc 
breakfast and a 7-franc dinner are served. I break- 
fasted there during the early days of the hotel's exist- 



Tarls 5 5 

ence, and found the service rather confused, but no 
doubt this has now been altered for the better. 

There is a little restaurant on the Isle de la Jatte 
which acquired a reputation for good Restaurant de 
breakfasts when the island was a fa- la Grande Jatte, 
vourite ground for duellists to settle ^^^® ^® ^^ ^^^^^ 
affairs of honour ; and any one who wishes to see the 
Parisian counterpart of our Hampstead can dine on 
a platform amidst the foliage of the big ^e vrai Robin- 
trees at Sceaux-Robinson, and can pull son, Sceaux- 
up to his eyrie the basket, containing ^o^i^son 
cold fowl and bottle of red wine and a yard of bread, 
by a rope. 

I am told that the Rond Royal at Compeigne has 
a pleasant restaurant at which to breakfast, but I 
cannot write from personal experience of it. 

The Bill and Tips 

I now come to the very important matter of prices. 
A Frenchman will tell one that it is possible by careful 
choice of dishes to obtain two good meals at a com- 
fortable restaurant a la carte for ten to twelve francs a 
day. My experience is that an Englishman who is in 
Paris to enjoy himself, going to the best restaurants, 
and neither stinting himself nor launching out into 
extravagance, spends about fifteen to sixteen francs on 
his breakfast and from eighteen to twenty francs on 
his dinner. For instance, the last time I dined at the 
Cafe Anglais by myself, this was my dinner : A half- 
dozen Ostend oysters, Potage Laitues et Quenelles, 
Merlans Frits, Cuisse de Poularde Rotie, Salade Romaine, 
some cheese, half a bottle of Graves i^ Cru, and a 
bottle of St. Galmier. It was a very simple dinner, 
but I did not want an elaborate one, as I was going 
on to a theatre. This dinner cost me eighteen francs. 
When two people dine together the cost a head is 



56 'The Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

always less than for a single dinner, and in many of 
the restaurants one portion is quite sufficient for two 
people. This used to be the case in all, but now on 
many of the cartes du jour the mystic letters "P.P." 
follow the prices, which mean that the figures show 
what is charged per pcrsonne. Somehow or another 
a Frenchman and his wife always dine more cheaply 
than an Englishman and his wife. It is, I believe, 
because the maitre cVhotcl will generally save the 
pockets of his compatriots if he can, but has not 
the same sympathy for the strangers who come to the 
restaurant. 

I will take as being typical three other bills I have 
preserved. One is for a lunch for two people at 
Maire's : Hors cTceuvre^ a dish of eggs and tomatoes, 
a Filet Ma'ire and potatoes, cheese, a couple of pears, 
a bottle of the Charbonnier of the house, and a bottle 
of mineral water. The total of this was 18 f. 50 c. 
At the Restaurant Laperouse I have eaten prawns, 
always an expensive dish. Bisque^ Filets de Sole Lape- 
rouse^ Noisettes de Veau Sautees Champignons^ Haricots 
Verts nouveaux^ and a slice of cheese, and drinking a 
bottle of Musigny, have been charged, for two, split- 
ting the portions, 17 f. Breakfasting by myself at 
the "Au Pere Boivin," I have eaten Goujons Frits, 
a Demi-Noisette de Filet Grille Sauce Estragon, and 
Cepes Bordelaise, have drunk half a bottle of Vouvray, 
and have been charged 7 f. 

To these totals the tips must be added. In the 
expensive restaurants a franc per louis or a franc per 
head is the least the head waiter expects, and I am 
sorry to say that we English and the Americans have 
so spoilt the market that a franc is scarcely received 
now with a "Thank you" at the smart restaurants. 
The sommelier is always on the watch expecting a 
tip, the portier who takes the hats and coats and the 
chasseur who calls a fiacre are permanently hopeful. 



A half franc apiece to these worthies is more than 
sufficient. If one is fairly generous three francs 
should see one clear after dinner or breakfast ; but 
some men deal out francs to every servant who looks 
as though he would like one. 

The Paris Clubs 

The Club life of the Parisians differs very consider- 
ably from the Club life of Britain and America. In a 
Parisian, or indeed any club of the continental nations, 
the " introducers " of any candidate have, when he 
becomes a member, a far larger responsibility than 
the proposer and seconder of a candidate for any 
London or New York club. The introducers, 
amongst other duties, are expected to present the 
new member to such gentlemen of the club as are 
of their acquaintance, and the new member has to 
record in his memory the faces of those gentlemen 
to whom he has been introduced and be ready to 
greet them. This etiquette makes all club life a 
little difficult to the Englishman or American who 
for . the first time becomes a member of a purely 
French club, or of a club organised on French models. 
The Anglo-Saxons in Paris, to escape this etiquette, 
have always of late years possessed a club or clubs of 
their own. 

Among the Anglo-Saxon clubs which are in existence 
in Paris at the present time is the Travellers' Club in 
the Avenue des Champs Elysees. The „, „ „ , 
house, the Hotel Pavia, has history ciub, Avenue 

attached to it. It was presented to a des Champs 

I • ; • • 1 1 f 1 Elysees 

great demi-mondaine \\\ the days or the 

Second Empire, and its salons became a centre of the 

dragon-fly life of impenitent Paris. When France 

fell sobbing into Russia's arms, proclaiming that she 

had at last found her amant de cotmr^ Cubat, the well- 



58 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

known restaurateur of St. Petersburg, who had been 
cook to a Czar, thought that as Paris loved St. Peters- 
burg so ardently, louis might be coined in a Restaurant 
Cubat in Paris while only roubles were to be taken 
in St. Petersburg. The Restaurant Cubat, excellent 
as it was, with its mixture of the French and Russian 
cuisines, did not " catch on " in Paris, and after the 
great Exposition of 1900 Cubat went back to St. 
Petersburg. For a while the Hotel de Pavia remained 
empty, but eventually the Travellers' Club was formed 
on European lines, having an attached association in 
London, and it has become an admirably managed 
club on the same lines as the best London clubs, and 
with a subscription equally high. 

The British Club, which has been in existence a 
dozen or more years, has had many homes. It began 
life in the Grand Hotel, emigrated to 
Club, 8 BoTiie- the Boulevard des Capucines, moved 
vard Males- on to the Rue de I'Arcade, and now, 

®^^®^ at last, seems to be securely established 

in the Boulevard Malesherbes, not a stone's throw 
from the Madeleine. The tax the French authorities 
levy on clubs has been a difficulty which the British 
Club has had to meet, and, like the Travellers', it has 
faced it successfully. The subscription to British 
members residing in Paris is ^2 a year, and there is a 
small entrance fee. The club has foreign and country 
members, and it extends the privilege of temporary 
membership to certain of the London clubs. The 
British Club has an English billiard-table, a reading- 
room, and a certain number of bedrooms for the use 
of its members. 

The Lawn Tennis Club on the Isle des Puteaux 
is a pleasant place at which to take afternoon tea 
Tennis Club, under the big sunshades, and in the 
Isle des Puteaux summer-time is a meeting-place for the 
smart people of the French and Anglo-Saxon world. 



The Polo Club at Bagatelle in the Bois de Boulogne, 
close to Longchamps, is to Paris what Ranelagh and 
Hurlingham are to London. It has its Poio ciuto, 
little pavilion where the ladies take tea, Bagatelle 
and its flower-beds and decoration are very well 
arranged. Bagatelle has its gymkhanas, its races tor 
children, and its competitions for ladies, after the 
manner of the clubs upon which it is modelled. 

If La Boulie had done nothing else to deserve fame, 
the fact that it was the training ground on which 
Massy, one of the world's champions. Golf Club, 
learned his golf would make it notable. La Boulie 
Great attention has been given to the greens. They 
have been partially underlaid with sand, and in the 
summer are watered daily. 

Of the purely Parisian clubs in Paris the Union 
Club is the most exclusive. It corresponds perhaps 
more nearly to the London Marl- 
borough Club than to any other club r union, Boule- 
I know. Its club-house is on the vard de la 
Boulevard de la Madeleine, where it 
occupies two floors of one of the big houses. There 
is very little card-playing at the Union, the traditions 
of the club being that it should be a salon and not a 
gaming-place, and politics are kept rigorously in the 
background. It has nearly 400 permanent members 
and a little over 200 honorary members. King Edward 
was one of the permanent members. 

The best known of the Paris clubs is undoubtedly 
the Jockey Club. If nothing else about it is re- 
membered, the story of Isabelle the j,^^ jockev 
flower-girl, who was practically adopted Club, Boulevard 
by the club, can always be recalled, des Capucines 
The club was founded by an Englishman, Lord 
Seymour, and many of the members of the British 
Jockey Club also belong to the French one. A 
" commission of dukes " secured the present club- 



6o T'he Gourmet' s Guide to Europe 

house on the Boulevard des Capucines and super- 
intended the furnishing and adornment of its very- 
comfortable rooms. 

The Club of the Rue Royale is very much like any 
of our large London social clubs. It is at the corner 
CercledelaRue ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ Royale in the great Hotel 
Royale, Place de Choislin ; one face looks on to the Place 
la Concorde j^ |^ Concorde and the other looks 

across the Rue Royale to the Ministry of Marine. 
Some of the English residents in Paris belong to 
this club. 

Every one u^ho has v^alked in the Champs Elysees 
on a fine summer day has noticed the w^ell-groomed 
elderly gentlemen w^ho sit on the raised 
runion Artis- terrace at the corner of the Rue Boissy 
tique, Rue d'Anglas and w^atch the people coming 

issy g ^^j o-oins: from the Place de la Con- 
corde to the Champs Elysees. These are the members 
of the Epatant, as the Cercle de I'Union Artistique 
is familiarly called. This club is the most amusing 
of all the Parisian clubs, and its fetes, its theatricals, 
its art exhibitions, have gained for it its astonishing 
nickname. 

Other Parisian clubs are the Automobile, next door 
to the Cercle de la Rue Royale, w^hich has a garden 
on its roof; the Military Club in the Avenue de 
rOpera ; and the Cercle Agricole, v^^hich is the most 
aristocratic and entirely French of all the clubs. 



AFTER DINNER 

To give any description of the performances likely 
to be found at the opera-houses and theatres and music 
halls of Paris would be an impossible task, for there is 
a constant change not only in the entertainments, but 
in the style of entertainment as well. The Opera 
and the Opera Comique, of course, arc standing dishes 



^aris 6 1 

for their particular types of opera, and the Fran^aise 
and the Odeon are subventioned to keep classical 
comedy alive. The Gymnase and the Vaudeville 
generally house modern comedy, and at the Palais 
Royal, the Varietes, and the Nouveautes there is an 
abundance of Gallic salt in the pieces performed. 
One little tip I may give even to Anglo-Saxons who 
knov^ their Paris, and that is to buy at any kiosk, 
on the day of arrival, the little paper Comoedia^ 
which not only gives the " casts " of all plays, but also 
a sketch of the plots. It also gives the programmes 
of all the music halls, big and small, tells one who are 
the stars singing at them, anv! what Revues are run- 
ning, and gives all the Cabaret Artistiques, and the 
places at which the bands play in the afternoons. It 
is a great help in deciding what plays may suit one's 
mood after dinner, or what other amusement one 
prefers. 



II 

FRENCH PROVINCIAL TOWNS 

Some Dishes of the Provinces— Calais— Boulogne— Wimereux — 
Hardelot— Le Touquet—Montreuil-sur-Mer— Dieppe— Puys— 
Pourville—Etretat— Havre — St. Adresse — Gonneville— Du- 
clair — Rouen — Honfleur — Trouville — Caen — Dives — Cher- 
bourg— Granville— Mont St. Michel— St. Malo— Cancale— 
Dinard — Roscoff— Brest — Quimper — Pont Aven — Quimperle 
— Bordeaux — Arcachon — Biarritz — Marseilles — Cannes — Nice 
— Beaulieu — Monte Carlo — Mentone — The Pyrenees — Pau — 
Aix-les-Bains — Vichy. 

When I sat down to write for the first edition of this 
book a chapter on the cookery and restaurants of the 
big towns and bathing-places and summer towns ot 
France, I had no idea of the impossible task I had 
undertaken. I had, to use an expressive Americanism, 
bitten off more than I could chew. No chapter could 
possibly cover this wide subject ; only a large book 
would do it justice ; and that book is not likely to be 
compiled, for no Frenchman would have the patience 
to write it, no German the taste, and no Englishman 
the knowledge. Almost every town of any import- 
ance has some special dish or some special pate of its 
own, there are hundreds of good old inns where the 
cuisine is that of their province, and there are great 
tracks of country, which ought to be marked by 
some special colour on all guide-book maps, where 
the cookery is universally good. Do you know the 
Chapeau Rouge at Dunkerque, the good old inn 
with a cardinal's hat as a crest, where the cookery 



FreJich Provincial Towns Gi^ 

is that of the northern provinces at its best, and 
where the Friday dhier maigre is a good example of 
what good ecclesiastical cookery used to be ? At 
Lille there is a restaurant, the Divour, the entrance 
to which is up a passage leading from the main street, 
which should be included in any guide to good eating 
in France, and I am sorry not to discourse on this and 
the buffet at the station, which is in high favour with 
the townspeople. Do you know the Cloche at Dijon ? 
and the Univers at Perigueux ? and the Cambronne 
at Nantes ? and the Lion d'Or at Reims ? These 
which come to my mind as I write are but a few of 
the tens of hundreds of inns and taverns of big towns 
in France which deserve each a chapter, but which 
are beyond the scope I am going to allow myself. 
One exception I am making to my own rule, and that 
is, that I hope to include in other editions of this book 
some information as to the restaurants and dining- 
places to be met with on favourite expeditions in the 
interior of France. I have made a beginning in this 
edition by giving attention to the tours of the Roman 
cities in Provence, and have written a few words 
about the towns of the Loire. 

It sometimes happens that a gourmet making a 
journey through some portion of France in search 
of the picturesque finds himself in a district of good 
cooks, and makes note of the fact and enjoys their 
handiwork. This occurs more often in the southern 
provinces than elsewhere. Leaving the Roman cities 
of Provence, and the Provencal cookery, the gourmet 
who has time to journey leisurely, and has an auto- 
mobile at his command, may make a most pleasant 
journey of gastronomic e5<:ploration in the district 
between Montpellier and Toulouse, which is a cradle 
of great cooks, and where the traditions of the cookery 
of the Romans, brought by great soldiers and great 
administrators into Gaul, still linger. The land of 



64 T^hc Gourmet's Guide to £u7^ope 

the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Saone, from Verdun 
down to Dijon, is another and a more northerly 
paradise of good cookery. In Dordogne there is not 
a peasant who cannot give a traveller en panne a 
truffled omelette which would make an alderman's 
mouth water, and a tumbler of the vin p'urre a fusil^ 
which is quite one of the best of the wines of the 
people ; and all the Midi from the Alps to the Pyre- 
nees is a happy hunting ground for the gastronome. 

In this chapter, however, I only, with the excep- 
tions I have already stated, intend to write of those 
seaside towns of amusement to which an Anglo- 
Saxon is likely to go to enjoy himself in summer or 
autumn or winter, and the towns in their neighbour- 
hood to which excursions will probably be made; 
of the principal "cure" places to which a Briton or an 
American is likely to be sent by his doctor, and of 
the big ports at which a traveller going to or coming 
from France may be obliged to remain for a few 
hours or a few days. I roughly follow the coast- 
line in writing of the various towns on the sea. 

Calais 

Calais, now that it possesses a bright little casino 

on the beach, which, of course, possesses a restaurant, 

and has had its bathing machines newly painted, 

aspires to be a " resort/' and considers itself just as 

good as any of its neighbours. Its buffet at the 

Gare Maritime still remains the best 
Gare Maritime r • ^ ^ ^ n-ir^i-im 

ot Its restaurants. 1 he Calais buffet 

has always had the reputation of being the best, or 
one of the best, railway refreshment rooms in France ; 
and though the typical Englishman in a hurry gene- 
rally calls for stewed chicken and mashed potatoes, and 
tells the waiter to open the bottle of wine which 
is nearest to him on the table, the man who is not 



F7'ench Provincial Towns 65 

suffering from train fever asks the cook what is in the 
dozen chafing dishes and casseroles which are kept hot 
on the centre table, looks at the vegetables, and gives 
a glance at the buffet of cold meats and the fruit counter 
before he sits down and orders his breakfast. The 
minute occupied by doing this is not misspent. 

AFTER DINNER 

If you are detained at Calais (and every man at least 
once in his lifetime is detained at Calais) you will pro- 
bably find a travelling company, should the period of 
the year be winter, playing in the theatre, which 
stands in a square just off the Avenue Leon Gambetta. 
There is a second theatre in the old portion of the 
town, close to the Hotel de Guise. In the summer 
the evening's amusements are focussed at the little 
Casino. 

Boulogne 

Before turning my attention to the existing res- 
taurants in Boulogne let me drop a figurative tear 
for the smallest and most distinctive of the Boulogne 
restaurants, the little white cafe-restaurant on the north 
pier, which has been destroyed by fire. The monies 
to be obtained there were always of the freshest, and 
its fish dishes — Sole Normande or Sole au vin hlanc or 
Sole Dieppoise — were excellent, for it has one of the 
best fish markets in the world to draw upon. I 
have eaten as good a Chateaubriand there as any man 
could require. When the improvements to the har- 
bour are completed a new north pier, giving a wider 
entrance, is likely to be amongst them, and the little 
white restaurant will probably be re- erected on this 
pier. 

An able gentleman, M. de St. Andre, has be- 

4. £ 



66 'T'he Gourmets Guide to Europe 

come the new director of the Boulogne Casino, and 
amongst the departments which he has galvanised into 
Casino life is the restaurant. One of the pro- 

Restaurant prietors of Maire's, in Paris, is now the 

lessee of the restaurant, and gives his personal atten- 
tion to its management. The banquets which are 
given there are quite good examples of big dinners, 
and as a change from the table d'hote meals of the hotels 
a breakfast on the terrace may be safely essayed. 

In the town, in the Rue de la Coupe, there is a 
The Royal Oak, little tavern, the Royal Oak, kept by 
Rue de la Coupe ^n Englishman. The Royal Oak is 
renowned for its hams and its Welsh-rabbits. 

The buffet at the Gare Maritime is an uncertain 
quantity. I have known it at periods to be an 
Gare Maritime example to English railway refreshment 
Buffet rooms, but at other times it drops down 

to the unappetising level of the usual station buffet. 
There is a petit salon leading out of the large room 
which is a pleasant place in which to dine, and a letter 
or a telegram to secure this room and a specially 
ordered little dinner or breakfast is a precaution I 
always take if I entertain one or two people while 
waiting to catch a train at the other station. This 
is one of the dinners which a manager provided on 
one of these occasions : — 

Salade Boulonnaise. 

Consomme Royal. 

Filet de Sole en surprise. 

Tournedos Princesse. 

Dessert. 

The salade is a savoury mixture in which moules 
play a leading part. The filet de sole was surprised 
to find itself inside a potato baked with its jacket on. 

The confectioner's shop of Caveng in the Rue 
Victor Hugo must be mentioned! f only because more 



French Provincial Towns 67 

little cakes and other confectionery find their way 
from that shop across the Channel to little English 
children than from any other shop in caveng's, Rue 
France. There is a comfortable tea- Victor Hugo 
room adjoining the shop, and a salon behind it. Tea 
is not the only liquid served in this annexe, for an 
Englishman who wants a whisky and soda or a glass . 
of wine can get either of them there. 

The Boulogne Clubs 

The English club of Boulogne no longer exists. 
Its numbers dwindled to twelve, and then two of 
those twelve quarrelled, and the club dissolved itself. 
A card with a good London club in a corner and 
the payment of five francs secure entrance to the 
Club Prive of the Casino. 

A good deal of money has been spent in putting 
in good order the golf links near Wimereux. 



AFTER DINNER 

In the summer time the theatre of the Casino caters 
for the needs of the Boulogne public, and gives them 
in turn comedy, operetta, and " Music Hall " per- 
formances. The stock company takes holiday should 
any Star with his or her own company pay a visit to 
Boulogne. In the winter the town theatre, just off 
the main street of the town, is open, but the perform- 
ances are not too well patronised. A carnival ball, 
however, at this theatre is well worth seeing, be- 
cause of the extraordinary mixture of people who 
form the dancers. The best sight that Boulogne has 
to show after dinner is a Bal Populaire in the grounds 
of the Casino, a ball at which the fisher girls in their 
distinctive costume form the majority of the dancers, 



68 T^he Goiir?nefs Guide to Siirope 

V/iMEREux, Hardelot, Le Touquet 

The little towns to the south of Boulogne, and 
within easy reach, I know better than I do those to 
the north. Wimereux, the nearest northerly town, 
has its two or three hotels all with restaurants, and 
Splendid Hotel, of these the Splendid seems the most 
Wimereux popular. There is a cafe in the Casino, 

and a theatre, but I do not remember a restaurant 
there. To the south of Boulogne, Mr. Whitley, 
Hotel des Mar- ^^o made history as the organiser of 
mousets, Har- the first Earl's Court exhibitions, 
*^®^°*- secures during the summer season a 

cook from one of the big London restaurants for the 
Hostelerie des Marmousets at Hardelot. 

The cookery at Le Touquet is quite good. M. 
Diette, who was at the Berkeley in London and after- 
wards at the Palais at Biarritz, is the lessee of three of 
the hotels, the Golf Hotel, the Atlantic, and the Her- 
mitage, and he has good cooks at all of them, and gets 
all his meat and his fowls and most of his other pro- 
The Hotels of visions from Paris. Madame Mouston 
Le Touquet at the Regina, and the proprietor of the 

Hotel des Anglais follow suit. Though the golfers 
who come over from England to play on the links 
sometimes grumble at the Le Touquet prices, they 
rarely abuse the cookery. 

Le Touquet-Paris Plage, the town settlements, 
boasts two Casinos, one in the forest and the other 
on the sea front. Little horses, baccarat, and an 
entertainment of some kind in the theatre are to be 
found at both during the summer season. 

Montreuil-sur-Mer 

Any one interested in old France and old French 
customs and old French manners should qo from 



I 



French Provincial Towns 69 

Boulogne by train or by motor-car to Montreuil-sur- 

Mer, and eat a mid-day meal at the Hotel de France. 

The hotel is just what an inn was in , „ 

, , rill 11 I Hotel de France 

the days or plumed hats and long boots, 

" Miladi " might look out of one of the upper win- 
dows at any moment, and one would not be in the 
least surprised to see Athos, Porthos, and D'Artagnan 
swagger down the rickety staircases. To breakfast 
on a sunny day in the courtyard where creepers form 
a canopy is an artistic pleasure, and the food prepared 
in the spotlessly clean kitchen is quite well cooked 
and palatable, though the service and napery are rough, 
and the cellar has no great pretensions. In the kitchen, 
through which visitors can pass at any time, the whole 
family of the proprietor is busy ; even the old grand- 
mother will make a salad, in the mixing of which she is 
an adept, for a favoured guest. One of the daughters 
of the house married the patissier of the town who 
makes woodcock pates^ the fame of which deserves 
a wider publicity than it has. Montreuil has a liqueur 
of its own distilled from the wild plums and other 
woodland fruits which grow in the moat of the old 
fortifications. 

Dieppe 

Dieppe has its own particular dish in the Sole 
Ditppoiscy in which shrimps and mussels add their 
flavour to the white wine sauce; and Monies Marinieres 
and Coquilles St. Jacques it also claims as its own. 
Being a town of Normandy, it is a stronghold of such 
local dishes as Sole Normande and Faisan Nor?nande^ 
a pheasant cooked in a tureen with apples. In the 
little streams of the forest in the country behind the 
town swim trout, the flesh of which is exceedingly and 
pleasantly sweet. 

Dieppe has always been a town of good cookery, 
and in the days of the Second Empire Lafosse*s 



70 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

Restaurant in the Grande Rue was one of the best 

dining-places in the provinces of France. You dine 

very well nowadays in Dieppe, for the restaurant of 

the Casino and the Royal, in friendly rivalry, keep 

each other well up to the mark. The Royal is one 

of the Gordon Hotels, and M. Varnier, 
Hotel Royal , . . . i r j ^ ^u 

who in winter is to be round at the 

Metropole, Monte Carlo, is the director. The 

windows of the restaurant of the hotel look over the 

great stretch of grass which separates the houses of the 

Plage from the sea. The prices of the Royal are said 

to be high, but I found that I dined in the very pretty 

little restaurant of the hotel just as well as I should 

have dined in a first-class Parisian restaurant, and that 

the prices were those of Paris. This is one of the 

little dinners for two I ate at the Royal, very well 

cooked, very well served, and not costing a fortune : — 

Cantaloup Frappe. 

Potage St. Germain. 

Rouget en Papillotte. 

Cotelette de Veau en Cocotte. 

Aubergines Frits. 

Coupe Royal. 

The Casino Restaurant is managed by M. Dou- 
coudert, who is the proprietor of the Grand Hotel. 
The Casino It is a white room, with a wall of 

Restaurant windows looking out on to the 

terrace and the sea. Of an evening it is pleasant to 
sit at one of the open windows and to look on the 
terrace in half light with its little tables and its 
groups of people walking leisurely backwards and for- 
wards, and to hear the sound of the waves breaking 
on the beach, mingling with the strains of the band. 
On fire-work nights there is no better position from 
which to see the Catherine-wheels splutter and the 
rockets shoot up than the windows of this little 



French ^ro\mcial T'owris 71 

restaurant. The cookery there is quite good, and 
the prices are about the same as those at the Royal, 
which seem to me not cheap, but on the other hand 
not extortionate. 

Just outside the Casino gates, and under the same 
management, is the Casino Brasserie, a long wooden 
shanty painted in bright colours, where The Casino 
a* little band plays and many cool Bocks Brasserie 
are consumed, and where there is much jollity. An 
excellent lunch is to be obtained for 2.50 francs, and the 
dinner at 3.50 francs is also excellent at the price. All 
sorts and conditions of men and women lunch and dine 
there, and any one who does not require quietude while 
he takes his meals will find the place distinctly amusing. 

The Faisan Dore, kept by M. Cabois, is a restaurant 
above a charcutier's shop in the Grand Rue. A little 
flight of stairs leads to the first floor, The Faisan Dore, 
where is the dining-room, and in the 74 Grand Rue 
interior, on the ground floor, can be seen a white- 
capped, white- jacketed cook, very busy amid the 
Vandyke shadows of his kitchen. The prices are 
moderate, and the resident English give the little 
restaurant a good deal of their custom. 

The Restaurant A. Lefevre, in the Rue de I'Hotel 
de Ville, has a clientele of men of the brush and pen. It 
is to all outward appearance a workmen's Restaurant A 
cafe, for it turns to the street a room Lefevre, Rue de 
with brown walls and black covered 1'^°*®^ ^^ Vill® 
seats against the- walls and zinc tables. Little chairs 
and some white painted tables are outside on the 
terasse^ an old woman who is the grand-mere sits 
at the comptoir inside. This simple establishment is 
the restaurant beloved of old by Whistler, and Madame 
Veuve Bellet, the young and sprightly widow who is 
the proprietress, will tell you how he used to come 
there every day to breakfast, saying that he could not 
get a ^ole Dieppoise really well cooked anywhere else. 



72 The Gourmet's Guide to Siirope 

Many artists of note have followed Whistler's example 
in breakfasting at the cafe, and there is a pleasant 
artistic and literary and theatrical atmosphere about 
the place. Henri, the waiter who spends his spare 
time in the kitchen, the shining pots and pans in 
which can be seen down a passage, is a character who 
is quite willing to go out fishing at unearthly hours of 
the morning to secure soles for a favoured customer. 
Madame Bellet, who is a cook, and a very good cook 
too, on occasions, will cook the fish secured by Henri 
to oblige any old friend. I was taken to lunch by one 
such old friend, and the excellent meal I was given 
left a mark on my memory. A table was laid for us 
in the salon, a little room where a stuffed seagull 
hangs from the ceiling, where a piano occupies a 
corner, and the windows of which look out on to the 
sunny little square, in the middle of which stands the 
old grey church of St. Remy. Madame was in the 
kitchen, but Mademoiselle, her daughter, in rose- 
sprigged muslin, was there to wait on us. A pretty 
smiling girl is Mademoiselle. The great question of 
the wine to be drunk with breakfast had to be settled. 
Madame had sent us a message that she recommended 
the old Chambertin. Mademoiselle thought we 
should prefer the Barsac. We solved the difficulty by 
drinking a bottle of Chambertin first and then a bottle 
of Barsac, and we came to the conclusion that 
Mademoiselle was a good judge. An omelette aux 
credettes was followed by the ^ole Dieppoise^ with a 
delicious sauce m which tiny mushrooms and monies 
and shrimps were bathed. A grilled chicken came 
after with lemon squeezed over it, and then Madame 
in black silk and lace walked into the salon to hear 
what we thought of the sole. For the sole we had 
nothing but compliments, but Madame was a little 
grieved to hear that we thought the old Chambertin 
had seen its best days and that we liked the old Barsac 



French Provincial T'owns 73 

better. " Oh, you gentlemen ! It is always like that. 
You like the Barsac best because it is a pretty girl 
that recommends it," said Madame, shaking a finger 
at her daughter, who laughed back at her. A cream 
cheese of the country, so light that it melted in the 
mouth, completed the repast. 

While I am writing my reminiscences of good 
lunches at Dieppe, let me describe a lunch I ate in 
admirable company just outside Dieppe cios Normand 
at an open-air breakfast place one sum- Martin-Eg-lise, 
mer on a hot day. At a long Porte Normande 
Normande the motor cars come to a halt in a little 
village street. A Norman gate has above it a thatched 
roof, and the long roof to this gate also shelters an 
array of white clothed tables. Beyond it is an orchard 
where wooden tables are set under the trees. From 
a barn, which has been converted into a kitchen and 
which has on its outer wall a copper washing-basin 
and a little cistern and a towel on a roller, issues a 
plump lady in a black dress. She is bare-armed and 
bare-headed. She is Madame, the proprietress. Says 
she, " Certainly Monsieur can have Truite Meuniere 
and a Poulct en Cocotte and Haricots Verts Panaches 
and a Tourte a la Creme, and will the ladies choose 
their table ? " for a lady and her two little daughters 
were of our party. We go through the orchard to 
the trout-stream which, with a pleasant gurgle, runs 
between grass-covered banks. The water is crystal 
clear, and moves the long green weed in it gently to 
and fro. The shadows above the pebbles are trout, 
cautious, well-fed fish, which are rarely to be caught 
at this point with a fly, but which by some means or 
another are regularly transferred from the stream to 
the tank in the barn. Hidden by trees, but its presence 
made clear by the clack-clack-clack of its wheel, is 
the mill driven by this stream. Across the water are 
meadows in which placid cows graze, and in the 



74 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

shadow of a pollard willow an old peasant sleeps. The 
apple trees by this brook shelter the most favoured 
tables, and one of these we secure and sit on rush- 
bottomed chairs to look at our neighbours while the 
trout are being cooked. There are two big parties of 
good bourgeois, each with a silver-haired grand-mere 
in the place of honour, each with the men in shirt- 
sleeves, for the mid-day heat is tropical, each with its 
three or four^ children. There is a pretty lady wear- 
ing a purple motor-veil and a white dress, and her 
cavalier, a Frenchman who plays for big stakes at the 
Casino ; there is a widow and her two daughters ; 
there are two Englishmen ; and a fat Frenchman in a 
broad-brimmed Panama hat and a nankeen coat, who 
mops his head continuously with a bandanna handker- 
chief. In the distance, near the Porte Normande, a 
violinist and a 'cello player in scarlet jackets and an 
Italian girl with a guitar make fine patches of vivid 
colour amidst the green. There are plenty of farm 
animals in the orchard. A white goat comes to the 
table and stands on ifes hind-legs to ask for bread, and a 
superannuated old sheep-dogwhich,one of the little girls 
asserts, has Chippendale legs, puts a cool nose against 
one's hands as a hint that he is present and ready to be 
fed. A little flock of geese take to the water and swim 
up stream, keeping just level with our tree, their beady 
eyes on the alert for any crumbs which may be thrown 
them. Our tree is no ordinary tree. Withies have 
been interwoven in its branches and a creeper trained 
over them. I do not suppose this is good for the 
tree's apple-bearing, but it certainly makes an ideal 
sunshade of it. A waiter in shabby dress clothes, 
whose shiny red nose tells of much running to and 
fro in the heat, lays a white tablecloth and receives 
our order for some of the oldest cider of the house 
with a resonant " Bon'^ He presently comes shuffling 
over the grass with his arms full of hot plates, two 



French Provincial Towns 75 

bottles of cider, and a covered dish in which sizzles 
the trout. The cider proves to be excellent, as it 
should be, for we are in Normandy, the cider country. 
The Italian girl begins to sing songs, " Santa Lucia " 
and "Adio Napoli," and the others, which always 
conjure up a vision of moonlit nights in the Bay of 
Naples and the singers rowing round the vessel. The 
'cello moans in accompaniment to the voice and the 
tinkling guitar, and gives that undercurrent of broken- 
heartedness which is in most of the south Italian peasant 
songs. It is quite incongruous, these songs of the 
south in a Normandy orchard, but the sunshine and 
the old cider and the clack of the mill and the sound 
of running water brings it all into the picture. The 
fowl in its big brown circular pot is as good as the 
trout has been, and the Italian girl, smiling to show 
two rows of brilliant teeth, brings round the plate 
with a napkin folded on it into which the sous are 
slipped. She asks us whether we would like to hear 
" le petit " play and sing. " Le petit " is a small boy 
in a sailor's dress, who is one of the little troupe, and 
who presently takes a violin and leads the band of 
three with much aplomb. Then he comes to an open 
space amid the trees and sings a comic song with a 
little dance after each verse. He too brings round the 
plate and takes away with it a great triangle of the 
tourte^ having looked to the Italian girl for permission 
before he accepts it. And then we find that it is 
nearly three o'clock, and we have to drive through 
the Foret d'Arques and see the castle and be back in 
Dieppe by four. So the little girls are sent running 
to tell the chauffeur to be ready, and we pass out of 
the lotus-land calm of the orchard on to dusty roads. 
The Italian girl, her mouth full of bread and sausage, 
comes to the door of the barn kitchen to wish us the 
pretty Italian equivalent of " Au revoir," and " le 
petit," clasping a toy boat, comes with her to wave 



76 T'hc Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

his hand. The name of the orchard restaurant is the 
Clos Normand, and it is at Martin-Egh"se, a mile or 
two out of Dieppe. 

The Dieppe Clubs 

The subscription to the Grande Cercle des Bains, 
the Baccarat Ckib of the Casino, is 10 francs. Mem- 
bership of a good Enghsh club does away with any 
delay in admission. The Dieppe Golf Club, of which 
the British Vice-Consul is secretary, has an i8-hole 
course, and is a mile from the town. Visitors pay 
2.50 francs a day, 10 francs a week, and 25 francs a 
month. The nine holes on the sea-side of this course 
are situated in wonderfully picturesque positions. 

PUYS 

At Puys, a mile and a half from Dieppe, Mons. 

Pelletier laid down an excellent cellar of wines in 

the Hotel Chateau de Puys. The 
Chateau de Puys ^ ^r^u-u..i ^ ^ 

restaurant or this hotel, on a plateau 

jutting out seawards and commanding some marvellous 

views, is a pleasant place at which to breakfast. 

POURVILLE 

At Pourville, two miles from Dieppe, uphill, past 

the golf links, M. Gras is responsible for the enter- 

„ ^ , , ^ . tainment at the Hotel Casino. The 
Hotel du Casino , . , 

restaurant has a special reputation 

achieved, in the first place, by " Papa " Paul Graaf, 

who was one of the chefs at the Tuileries in the days 

of Napoleon III. A gourmet en voyage writes thus 

• to me of M. Gras : " Gras is a very shrewd fellow 

who adds every year to his hotel accommodation. 



French Provincial Towns 77 

which fs extremely simple — no gorgeous furniture or 
anything of that sort. The place is not cheap, and 
for meals a la carte the charges are bv no means low. 
But the food is good and uncommonly well cooked. 
Gras looks after his business very closely, and is proud 
of his kitchens and larders, which he loves to show to 
visitors. His wines are good and not too expensive, 
and he can cook you a lobster a V Amer'icaine as well 
as it can be done in any New York restaurant. My 
impression of the Hotel du Casino is that it is a second- 
rate place run in first-rate style." 

Etretat 

At Etretat there is a Cafe Restaurant in the Casino 
where a dejeuner, v'ln comprisy is obtainable for 4 francs, 
and a dinner for 5 francs ; but most of 
the English settled in Normandy go 
either to the Hotel Hauville or the Hotel Blanquet 
for any meals when they visit this seaside town, 
the prices at the Roches-Blanches being somewhat 
frightening. The Hotel Blanquet charges 4.75 francs 
for its dejeuner served at separate tables. 

Havre 

Havre is one of the towns in which the Englishman 
or American crossing to Southampton or coming thence 
often finds himself for some hours. Tortoni's in the 
market-place has a reputation for good Tortoni, Place 
cookery. Judging from the two or Gambetta 
three dinners I have eaten there, both a la carte and 
the table d'hote one at 5 francs — eight courses and a 
pint of wine for one's money — the cookery is of the 
good solid bourgeois order. Tortoni's Hotel Restaurant 
must not be confounded with the Brasserie Tortoni 
quite close to it, which is a bachelor's resort ; and 



78 l^he Gour?72efs Guide to Europe 

which I, as a bachelor, have found very amusing 
sometimes after dinner. 

Frascati's Restaurant, an adjunct to the big hotel 
on the sea-shore, is the classic restaurant of the place, 
Frascati, Rue ^^d many a man who has come over 
du Perrey by the midnight boat and has stayed 

for a bathe and a meal at Frascati's before going on 
to Paris by the mid-day train has breakfasted there 
in content. The Ecrevisses BordelaheSy the Croutes aux 
Champignons^ the Salade Russe here have left me pleasant 
memories. In the winter the chef retires to Paris or 
elsewhere, and the restaurant is not to be so thoroughly 
trusted ; and sometimes when a crowd of passengers 
are going across to Southampton by the night boat 
to catch an American steamer, I have found the 
attendance very sketchy, owing to the waiters having 
more work than they can do satisfactorily. The res- 
taurant in summer is in the verandah facing the sea. 

The Hotel de Normandie is a hostel at which the 
Hotel de Nor- cooking and the wines are good. This 
mandie, Rue de is a menu of a table d'hote diner maigre 
^^'^^ served there on Good Friday, and it is 

an excellent example of a meal without meat : — 

Bisque d' Ecrevisses. 

Reine Christine. 

Filets de Soles Normande. 

Nouillettes Napolitaine en Caisse. 

Saumon de la Loire Tartare. 

Sorbets Supreme Fecamp. 

Coquille de Homard a I'Americaine. 

Sarcelles sur Canape. 

Salade panachee. 

Asperges d'Argenteuil Mousseline, 

Petits Pois au Sucre. 

Glace Quo Vadis. 

Petits Fours. Corbeille de Fruits. 

Dessert, 



French Provincial Towns 79 

The restaurant of the Continental Hotel, on the 
Chaussee des Etats Unis, opposite to the Setee, has 
recently become one to be recom- The Continental, 
mended. One of its specialties is a Chaussee des 
Foulet Grand Due, in the sauce of which ^*^*^ ^^^^• 
both whisky and brandy are used. I have not tasted 
this alcoholic dish myself, but I have the word of a 
gourmet of unblemished taste that it is excellent. 

One of my correspondents sends me an account of 
Perrier's, a little restaurant, which I give in his own 
words : " The quaintest and most origi- Perrier's, 
nal place in Havre is a little restaurant The Quay 
on the quay, opposite where the Trouville boats start 
from. It is known equally well as * Perier's,' or the 
Restaurant des Pilotes. It is kept by one Buholzer, 
who was at one time chef at Rubion's in Marseilles. 
He afterwards was chef on one of the big Trans- 
atlantique boats, where he learnt to mix a very fair 
cocktail. The entrance is through a tiny cafe with 
sanded tiled floor. Thence a corkscrew staircase 
leads to a fair-sized room on the first floor. All the 
food you get there is excellent, and Bouillabaisse or 
Homard a V Amer'icaine, ' constructed ' by the boss, is a 
joy, not for ever, but, in the case of the first-named, 
for some time. The house does not go in for a 
very varied selection of wines, but what there is is 
good." 

My correspondent qualifies this good report by 
telling me that the last time he breakfasted at the 
Restaurant des Pilotes it took the proprietor a very 
long hour to prepare the feast. 

The Fox Bar alongside the Bourse has during the 

past two years been much patronised by the sporting 

members of the British community. _ _ 
T • 1 1 T^ 11/ I^ox Bar 

It IS owned by Reynard, who is the 

proprietor of the Cafe Guillaume Tell on the 

Boulevard de Strasbourg. Jules, the bar-tender, was 



8o 'The Goiirmefs Guide to Europe 

for years smoke-room steward on La Champagne^ 
and can mix any cocktail ever invented in America. 



St. Adresse 

The outlying suburb of Havre, St. Adresse, is, 

I have little doubt, the future summer "resort" of 

Havre. One of the richest and most 
Le Commerce . . ^ , r ^u j 

enterprismg Y rencnmen or the day, 

M. Dufayel, whose great shops in Paris are world- 
known, has acquired a large space of land there, 
has built a splendid club, which he leases at a pepper- 
corn rent to the local yacht-racing association, and 
a fine restaurant to be called the Commerce, which, 
however, is at present without a tenant. An hotel 
which was commenced by M. Dufayel has been de- 
layed in erection by landslips. 

There are half-a-dozen little cafes and restaurants 
Le Broche a ^.t St. Adresse, and the Broche a Rotir 

Rotir has always been a favourite resort of 

the people of Havre. 



GONNEVILLE 

At Gonneville, which can be easily reached by 
train either from Havre or Etretat, at the Hotel 
„ , . , Aubouro; there is a very interestins; 

Hotel AubOUrg n r u l it- 1 

collection or old cupboards, chma, and 
works of art. The food is excellent, and very cheap, 
and the proprietor is a " character " who is very proud 
of his visitors' book. 



DUCLAIR 

On the upward voyage, going from Havre to 
Rouen, Duclair is passed twelve miles from Rouen. 



French Provincial 'Towns 8i 

The Hotel de la Poste there is a house worthy of 
special notice. The proprietor, Denise, himself cooks 
a Canard-Duclair with a skill that no Hotel de la 
great chef could better. He has a Poste 
good cellar, but the visits of a little band of gourmets 
from Havre have made serious gaps in its bins. The 
hotel, with the exception of the kitchen, which re- 
quired no improvement, has lately been entirely 
modernised. 

Havre Clubs 

The Cercle Fran9ois I. is a social club which 
consists of about i8o members. It opens its door 
to all nationalities. Members can give cercle Fran- 
their friends cards of admission for the 9ois I. 
day, week, or month without charge. The cuisine 
is excellent and the wines well chosen. 

At St. Adresse, the Havre Yacht Club has as a 
home a beautiful building, probably the finest club- 
house of the kind in Europe. It stands Palais des 
high above the bay, opposite the win- Regattes 
ning flag in the regattas. It has a long wide verandah, 
and its suite of rooms, high and finely proportioned, 
comprise a dining-room, a ball-room, and a concert- 
room or theatre. 



AFTER DINNER 

Havre boasts two theatres — the large municipal 
theatre in the Place Gambetta, where one obtains 
solid amusement, and the Theatre-Cirque on the 
Boulevard Strasbourg, where lighter fare is provided. 
The Folies Bergeres in the Rue Lemaitre is the Cafe 
Concert of the town. There is music after dinner at 
Frascati's and the Casino at St. Adresse. 



82 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 



Rouen 

The restaurant at the Hotel d'Angleterre is the 
dining - place at which the travelling Englishman 

TT«+^i A^K^cr~-\r. ^cnerallv orders his ^ole Normande and 
Hotel d Angle- ^ J . i i » i j 

terre, Cours La net on Konennane^ and the notel and 

Bbieldieu restaurant, which have been recently 

redecorated, are very fresh and smart. The proprietor 
Hotel de Paris, of the Hotel de Paris, on the Quai de 
50 Quai de Paris Paris, prides himself on the cookery in 
his restaurant, and his 4-franc table cVhote dinner is 
really an excellent meal at the price. I am told 
by men who know Rouen well that the cookery 
Hotel de la ^^ ^^ Hotel de la Poste is all that a 

Poste, Rue fastidious diner can require, and that 

Jeanne d'Arc ^|^g prices are very reasonable. 

The Restaurant de la Cathedrale in the Rue des 
Carmes is under the direction of MM. Convert and 
Restaurant de la Schwartz, the former of whom was for 
Cathedrale, Rue a while rnaitre-chef at Marlborough 
des Carmes House. Its cookery under the personal 

superintendence of M. Convert is first-class, and it 
has an excellent cellar of wines. MM. Convert and 
Schwartz cater for some of the leading clubs in the 
city — the Union and Lloyd's, for instance. The view 
of the cathedral from the windows of the restaurant 
is a fine one. 

Of course the Rouen duck is not any particular 

breed of duck, though the good people of Rouen will 

probably stone you if you assert this. It is simply a roan 

duck. The rich sauce which forms part of the dish 

„ , , _, was, however, invented at Rouen. The 
Restaurant de jt, tip/at /t 1 

Paris, Rue de delights or the bole Normande 1 need not 

laGrosse dilate on. A 2;ood bottle of bureundv 

Horloge . ^ . b / 

IS the best accompaniment to the duck. 

The Restaurant de Paris, in the Rue de la Grosse 



French Provincial 'Towns 83 

Horloge, is a very cheap restaurant, where you get 
a great deal to eat at dinner for 2 francs, and where 
you will find the Choux Farcies and other homely dishes 
of Normandy as well as the excellent little cream 
cheeses of the country. 



AFTER DINNER 

At the Theatre Frangais the municipality supplies for 
the winter a company to play comedies and operettas. 
The Theatre des Arts, on the Quai de la Bourse, 
is popular, and there are two Cafe Chantants, the Al- 
hambra in the town, and the Folies Bergeres on the 
island in the midst of the river. There are concerts 
on summer evenings at the Cafe Victor. 



Caudebec en Caux 

In the quaint little mediaeval townlet of Caudebec 
the cookery at the Hotel de la Marine, a good old- 
fashioned hotel beloved by artists, is Hotel de la 
quite good. The hotel is new in front. Marine 
and is old-fashioned and picturesque in its back 
regions. Its proprietor is now building a quite new 
hotel, the Villa Isabelle, with a good garden before it 
and a fine view of the Seine. 



HONFLEUR 

Crossing the Seine, one is in the land of cider and 

Pont I'Eveque cheese. At Honfleur you will find 

splendid Monks Marinieres and a very 

J ^ 7 / 75 7 A , I ij r I • 1 Cheval Blanc 

good table a note at the oid-rashioned 

Cheval Blanc on the Quai ; and at the Ferme St. 

Simeon up on the hill, in beautifully wooded ground, 



84 The Goiirmefs Guide to Europe 

there is to be obtained some particularly good spark- 
ling cider. Honfleur has a special reputation for its 
shrimps and prawns. 

Trouville — Deauville 

During the Trouville fortnight, when all the world 
descends upon Trouville, the various big hotels and 
the Casino have more clients than they really can 
cater for. At the Roches Noires, or the Paris, one is 
likely to be kept waiting for a table, and at the Casino 
a harassed waiter thrusts a red mullet before one, when 
one has ordered a sole. The monies of Trouville are 
supposed to be particularly good, and also the fish. 
There are table d'hote meals at the restaurants of the 
Helder and De la Plage, the second being the cheaper 
of the two, and food is to be obtained at Tortoni's 
and at the Brasserie on the edge of the Promenade des 
Planches. But Trouville in the season may be taken 
to be exiled Paris in a fever, half as expensive again, 
and not half so " well done." The amusements after 
dinner are concentrated at the Casino and a little 
music hall, the Eden Casino. 

Caen 

My experience has been that whether one stays on 
a yacht or in a hotel or villa at Trouville one is glad 
to motor over to some one of the towns in the district 
to eat a meal in quiet, and to escape for an hour or 
two from the racecourse and the baccarat-room. 
Dives and Caen form the goal of two of the 
pleasantest excursions from Trouville. 

Tripes a la mode de Caen may be a homely dish, 
but it is not to be despised, and it can be eaten 
quite at its best in the town where it was invented. 
I have eaten it with great content at a bourgeois 



French Provincial 'Towns 85 

restaurant, opposite to the Church of St. Pierre, the 
Restaurant Pepin, if my memory serves me rightly, 
and a Sole Bordeaux to precede it. The p^pin 
proprietor, M. Chandivert, was very 13 Marche-au- 
anxious that I should add a Caneton ^°^^ 
Rouennaise to the feast, but I told him that " to every 
town its dish." He gave me a capital pint of red 
wine, and impressed on me the fact that he had 
obtained a gold medal at some exhi- Busch, 1 Rue 
bition for his andouillettes. Another St. Laurent 
restaurant celebrated for its tripe is that of Busch, in 
the Rue St. Laurent. 

Caen is the town of the charcutiers^ and you may 
see more good cold viands shown in windows, in a 
walk through its streets, than you will Ang-leterre, Rue 
find anywhere else outside a cookery ^^- "^^^^ 
exhibition. Caen is an oasis in the midst of the bad 
cookery of Western Normandy ; and the restaurant 
at the Hotel d'Angleterre and the Restaurant de 
Madrid are very much above the aver- Madrid, Rue 
age of the restaurant of a French S*- ^^^^ 
country town. In both restaurants you can dine and 
breakfast in the shade in the open air, the Madrid 
having a good garden, the Angleterre a great tent in 
the courtyard, — a welcome change from the stuffy 
rooms, full of flies, of most Normandy hotels. I have 
a most pleasant memory of a Homard Amer'tcaine, 
cooked at the Hotel d'Angleterre, which was the very 
best lobster I ever ate in my life. The old chef who 
made the fame of the Angleterre has retired, but his 
successor is said to show no falling off in the art of 
preparing a good dinner. I would suggest to the 
wayfarer to breakfast in the garden of the Madrid 
and dine at the Angleterre. There is a little restau- 
rant, A la Tour des Gens d'Armes, on a la Tour des 
the left bank of the canal, which is ^ens d'Armes 
much frequented by students, and where an al fresco 



86 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

lunch is served at a very small price. The food is 
good for the money, and there is always a chance 
of finding some merry gathering there. A note of 
warning should be sounded as to the cider and vin 
ordinaire supplied as part of the table d'hote dinners in 
Caen, and indeed everywhere in Normandy. There is 
almost invariably good cider to be had and good wine 
on payment, but the cider and wine usually put on 
the table rival each other as throat-cutting beverages. 
Vieux Calvados is an excellent pousse cafe. It reads 
almost like a fairy tale to be able to recount that the 
delicious oysters from the coast-villages of Ouistreham 
and CourseuUes can be bought at 50 centimes the 
dozen, or very little more. 

Dives 

The Hotel of Guillaume le Conquerant at Dives is 
an interesting old house full of curiosities. There is 
Guillaume le some furniture there which belonged 
Conquerant to Madame de Sevigne, and the chair 

used by her when writing some of her letters. The 
courtyard with its statues, its flowers, and its creepers 
is quite out of the ordinary. Mons. Remois, its pro- 
prietor, is a man of great taste, and has personally 
superintended the restoration of the old house. The 
5-franc table d'hote dinner is quite good of its kind. 

Cherbourg 

Cherbourg, the calling-place for Atlantic steamers, 
is a very likely place for the earnest gourmet to find 
himself stranded in for a day, and I regret that there 
is no gastronomic find to report there. A most com- 
petent authority writes thus to me on the capabilities 
of the place : — 



French Provincial Towns 87 

" There are no restaurants, in the true sense of the 
word, in Cherbourg. 

" The leading hotel, where most of the people go, 
and which is the largest, with the best cuisine and 
service, is the Hotel du Casino. This Hotel du Casino, 
hotel is managed by Monsieur Marius, ^^ Plage 
and though partially shut during the winter season, 
travellers can always get a good plain dinner there. 
During the summer season, that is from May till 
October, the hotel is fully open, and has a petits 
chevaux room, entry free of course, and also good 
military music in the gardens, twice a week. The 
gardens are also very prettily illuminated very often, 
whilst from time to time firework displays help to 
pass away the evenings. The dining-hall faces the 
only nice portion of beach in the town, and being 
entirely covered in with glass, is warm in winter and 
cool in summer, when it can all be open. The meals 
are usually table cThote^ but it is possible also to order 
a dinner a la carte if one prefers to do so. Here 
also the traveller will find a little English spoken 
amon? the waiters and maitres cChotel. The wines are 
pretty good, but there is no very special brand for 
which the place is known ; nor does the hotel boast 
of any special plat. 

" The Hotel de France, another fair-sized hotel, is 
the one patronised mostly by the naval and military 
authorities of the town, but is not so Hotel de France, 
amusing a place for the traveller to ^^® ^^ Bassin 
stay at or dine at ; though I understand that the 
dinner to be obtained there is in every way satisfactory. 

" Finally, I might mention two other hotels at 
which one can dine comfortably ; these are the 
Hotel d'Amiraute and the Hotel d'Angleterre, at 
both of which a good plain dinner is served. 

" The chief joint obtainable here to be recom- 
mended is of course the mutton, as Cherbourg is 



88 'fhe Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

noted for its pre-sale all over France ; but beyond 
this the food is of the usual ordinary kind to be 
obtained in most French towns of this size." 

Granville 

On the west coast of Normandy, Granville is the 
first town of any great importance. Its hotels still 
adhere to the Norman custom of placing 
Casino ^^j ^j^^ guests at one table, unless an extra 

50 centimes a head is paid. A 4-franc dinner 
with a pint of wine included is served at the Casino 
Restaurant. 

M. Roche, who made a fortune in London in 
Old Compton Street, has taken a little hotel near 
Granville, and as he learned cooking under Frederic 
of the Tour d' Argent, he may be depended upon for 
an excellent meal. 

Mont St. Michel 

In no holiday resort that I know of is there more 
energetic touting carried on by restaurants than at 
Mont St. Michel. Boys in blue aprons interrupt 
their game of tossing sous into the air to shout to the 
passengers arriving by tramway the merits of the 
various restaurants on the rock, and all the way up 
the narrow street, which climbs, by steep gradients 
and occasional steps, to the abbaye, the best-looking 
maid of the many cafes and restaurants stands at the 
door offering a card, and extolling the view to be 
seen, the luncheon to be eaten, or the coffee to be 
drunk. The higher one goes up the street the cheaper 
the luncheon becomes. At the Poulard establishment, 
almost on a level with the sea, the price is 3 francs. 
A hundred feet higher the price drops to 2 francs. 
From the number of Poulard's establishments one 
might suppose that the mount was peopled by Poulards, 



French 'Provincial T'owns 89 

but the establishment nearest the gate of entry into 
the fortifications is the Restaurant Poulard, with a 
celebrity for the making of a great eighteen-egg 
omelette, and for fowls roasted, half-a-dozen at a 
time, on a great spit. Madame Poulard, in old days, 
used herself to wield the titanic pan in which the 
omelette was made. I believe that the good lady has 
sold her restaurant to a Paris syndicate, and has re- 
tired ; but the great pan is still to be seen in the 
kitchen, and is used when tourists wish to see the 
omelette made. 

Poulard Jeune and Poulard Aine used to have res- 
taurants in opposition to each other, but they are 
now joined under the name of Poulards Les Poulards 
Reunis, and form one large hotel restau- i^eunis 
rant, with several "dependances." There is plenty 
of noise at the Poulard Restaurant, for a waiter in the 
shelter across the street, where coffee is served, rings 
a big bell whenever he has a few seconds to spare. 
The luncheon rooms, big bare rooms of match-boarding 
and plaster, are on the first floor, and when the summer 
season is at its height there is often a great crush on 
the narrow staircase leading up to them. A big table 
runs down the centre of each room, and there are 
smaller tables by the walls. Sturdy waitresses in 
black bustle about, clearing away dirty plates and 
glasses, and laying a fresh set for each new arrival. 
The lunch is a big 3-francs worth, with the usual 
50 centimes added for proud people who wish to sit 
at separate tables. On the day I lunched there it 
consisted of cold ham, an omelette, mutton cutlets and 
potatoes, roast veal and salad, and cakes and cheese. 

The Duguesclin, further up the street than the 
Poulard establishment, has an airy ^ne Duguesclin 
dmmg-room lookmg out on to the 
rampart. The lunch is, I believe, a 1.50 one, but it 
may have risen to 2 francs. 



90 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 



St. Malo 

Brittany, the land of eggs and butter, is also a 

land of gigantic meals at very cheap prices, roughly 

served, wholesome no doubt, but better appreciated 

with an appetite sharpened by Brittany air than they 

would be under less healthy conditions. In St. Malo 

there is one restaurant, that attached to the Hotel 

de France et de Chateaubriand in the 
Hotel de France ^^ ^, ^ l • j u- i l 
et de Chateau- rlace Chateau briand, which has preten- 

briand, Place sions to distinction and elegance. The 
Chateaubriand ^ *. ^u ^ .. • • • i 

entrance to the restaurant is in a side 

street. The rooms have crimson portieres to their 
windows ; there are palms, and the little tables are 
not set too near each other. The linen and cutlery 
are better than are usually to be found in Brittany. 
A lunch and a dinner of the day are the meals usually 
served in this restaurant, the prices, if I remember 
rightly, being 3 and 5 francs respectively. It is as 
well to take the meal which is ready, for I have found 
by personal experience that the kitchen has no great 
variety to offer for a lunch or dinner a la carte. 

In the Place Chateaubriand, the little square which 
is the centre of the life of the town, in which are 
four or five cafes, two of which at least have ladies' 
Hotel del'Uni- bands as an attraction, is the Hotel de 
vers, Place I'Univers, the dining-room of which is 

Chateauhriand patronised by the " commis voyageurs " 
who come to St. Malo on business, and who go to 
no hotel that has not good sound bourgeois cookery. 
The room, or rather rooms, are rather low, and a long 
table (Thote table runs down the centre of each ; but 
there are small tables at the side for the use of people 
who do not wish to herd with all-comers. The price 
of the meals is a small one, and the cookery is prob- 
ably the best in the town. 



French Provincial Towns 91 

The Franklin Hotel, almost next door to the Casino 

outside the walls of the town, caters for an English and 

American clientele which lives en pension 
1 ^T-i 1 -1 1 The Franklin 

there. i he meals, neither very good 

and not remarkably indifferent, call for no special 
comment. 

Other restaurants in the town, for which corre- 
spondents have had a good word as to cheapness, are 
the Perdrix in the Rue Jacques-Cartier, and that of 
the Lion d'Or in the Place Chateaubriand, and the 
restaurant in the fish-market, with a specialty of 
shell-fish ; but I cannot speak of any of these from 
personal knowledge, except the latter, where I ate 
monies a la marinlere amidst noisy though amusing 



surroundings. 



AFTER DINNER 



In summer any one staying at St. Malo is quite 
likely to see a very good performance of opera at the 
Casino. The opera and the ballad are recruited for 
the season from the younger members of " The " 
profession in Paris, and a clever band of singers and 
dancers is usually brought together. There is, of 
course, a baccarat club and the usual ball game in the 
Casino. 

Cancale 

A tram connects St. Malo with Cancale, the town 
of oysters. The Hotel Duo;uesclin, ^ 
which has a large garden, is a plea- 
sant halting-place, and its prices are very cheap. 

Parame 

My knowledge of the restaurants of Parame, the 
town which adjoins St. Malo, is confined to a dinner 
and a lunch eaten in the restaurant of the Hotel 



92 77z6' Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

Royal. They were both very well cooked little meals. 
As I was a guest on both occasions, I do not know 
what their cost was. In the summer the Casino at 
Parame has all the usual attractions, and the chemin 
de fer in the Club Prive is often for very high stakes. 

DiNARD 

It is rather surprising that, at sucli a flourishing 
town of amusement as Dinard is, there should be so 
few first-class restaurants ; but the people who live 
in the beautiful villas entertain, for the most part, in 
their homes, and the greater number of people who 
stay in the hotels are en pension^ and are contented 
with the table cfhote meals of their hotel. The one 
restaurant of the first class is that attached to the 
Restaiirant de Royal Hotel. It is a semicircle of 
I'Hotel Royal glass windows, with a wooden roof, 
and though it affords splendid views of the bay and 
the islands, is a difficult restaurant to keep cool in 
summer and warm in autumn. It is closed during 
the winter months. It is quite first-class in all its 
appointments. Its cookery justifies its prices, which 
are on the Bois de Boulogne scale. Leoni's band 
makes music outside in the lounge, and M. Renaud, 
who manages the restaurant of the Cannes Casino so 
successfully during the winter months, brings his good 
taste and his knowledge of the predilections of each 
member of a large clientele to Dinard for the summer 
season as the manager of the restaurant. 

The other restaurant in Dinard which merits parti- 
cular description is the Restaurant Beau Vallon, on 
Restaurant ^^^ Vicomte, the peninsula which runs 

Beau Vallon, out into the Ranee, the great estuary 
La Vicomte ^j^j^j^ j^ between Dinard and St. Malo. 

The restaurant is an easy walk from the town, and 
the cliff path by which it can be approached is a 



French Provincial T'owns 93 

pleasant way by which to reach it. The restaurant, 
which is quite a small building, has in its grounds a 
terrace half way down the cliff, where there are 
a dozen little tables set out, and which commands a 
very fine view across the Ranee to the St. Servan 
bank. There are also tables sheltered by hedges of 
privet, and little summer houses, each with a table in 
it. The Beau Vallon is a favourite place at tea time, 
and it is also popular at luncheon time. The prices, 
as a rule, are quite moderate ; but if the proprietor is 
put on his mettle he can serve a feast of ceremony with 
due dignity, and charge a high price per head for 
doing so. A dish of crab is one of the specialties of 
the house. Crab and langoustes are plentiful in this 
part of the coast, and in the St. Malo fish-market I saw 
a number of boxes of sardines in salt. At one time 
the sardines deserted this coast, but I take it that they 
have now returned. Very sweet little Slips come from 
the bay, and one of the delicacies is fried Equilles, the 
little eels which are dug out of the sand. They are 
dug for on other sandy beaches, but are, I believe, 
usually used for bait. They are rather oily, but quite 
pleasant morsels. Of the many very cheap restaurants 
which are near the landing-place, and in the main 
street at Dinard, that Des Colonies in the largest of 
the streets is the tidiest and most airy. The lunch 
there is a 2-franc one. 



The Dinard Clubs 

The Dinard Club is cosmopolitan in membership, 
but the Anglo-Saxon members greatly outnumber the 
others. It is run on pleasant British The Dinard 
lines, and its cookery is French, but ^^^^ 
plain enough to suit British tastes. It has bridge and 
billiard rooms. The subscription is 120 francs for a. 



94 T^he Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

year, lo francs for a week, and other sums in like pro- 
portion for other periods. 

The Golf Club of Dinard is four miles distant at 

St. Briac. The links are good ones 
Tne Golf Club ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^ ^j^j^ ^^^ gg^ ^^j^^g^ 

A tramway connects St. Briac with Dinard. 

AFTER DINNER 

The Dinard Casino, with its opera and operetta 
troupes, its balls, its Tzigane musicians, and its baccarat 
club, focuses the evening amusement of Dinard. 
There is a second Casino, which was at one time in 
competition with the " high life " one, but is now to 
be incorporated into the Royal Hotel. 

DiNAN 

All the hotels at Dinan cater for the excursionists 
who come there for the day by steamer or raik I 
ate at the Hotel de Paris et d'Angleterre portions of a 
huge meal, which comprised ham, cold bar and sauce 
Tartare^ beef, and a fricassee of haricots hlancs^ veal and 
potatoes, cheese and fruit, the cost of which, including 
unlimited red or white wine or cider, was 2 francs. 
Had I gone to the Hotel de France or the Hotel 
de I'Europe I should have been offered a similar bar- 
barous feast at the same extraordinarily small cost. 

ROSCOFF 

Roscoff is celebrated for its primeurs^ for the Gulf 
Stream gives it an equable climate, and the market gar- 
deners whose ground is near the sea supply vegetables 
to the Paris markets very early in the year. Lobsters 
and langoustes are exported in great quantities from 
Roscoff, and here, as along all the Brittany coast^ 



French Provincial Towns 95 

prawns, artichokes, eggs, lobsters, crabs, langoustes are 
plentiful. Hotel des Bains 

Here is a typical Breton menu, one de Mer 
of the meals at the Hotel des Bains de Mer, Ros- 
coff:— 

Artichauts a I'Huile. 

' Pommes de terra a I'Huile. 

Pore frais froid aux Cornichons. 

Langouste Mayonnaise. 

Canards aux Navets. 
Omelette lines Herbes. 

Filet aux Pommes. 

Fromage a la Clreme. 

Fruits, biscuits, &c. 

Cidre a discretion. 

This is rather a terrible mass of food ranged in the 
strangest order, but I insert it to show the traveller in 
Brittany that he need never think his meal ended when 
he reaches the omelette, and that he had better take a 
gargantuan appetite with him. 

Brest 

This great naval town has better cafes than it has 
dining or lunching places ; the Cafe Brestois in the 
Rue de Siam, and the Grand Cafe in the same street, 
beina both good. Besides the restaurants attached to 
the hotels, there are the Restaurant Aury and the 
Brasserie de la Marine, both on the Champ de Bataille, 
but I have no details concerning them. 

OuiMPER 

At the Hotel de I'Epee the table d'hote meal is good 

at ^ francs a head. The hotel is a real „ . , , vt-^^^i 
1 1 r 1 • J T- u • • 1 ^oX€i de 1 Epee 

old-fashioned J:<rench provincial one, 

and stands on the quay. Fresh sardines and excellent 

vegetables are specialties of this hotel. 



96 'The Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

Pont Aven 

Apart from being a good homely place to stay at, 
La Villa Julia, or to give it its grander name, the 
The Hotel des Hotel des Voyageurs, at Pont Aven is 
Voyageurs w^orth a visit, for it has been the tem- 

porary home of many of the greatest French painters, 
notably poor Bastien Lepage. They are w^elcome, 
and are provided w^ith studios, being only charged 
5 francs a A-^-^ pension. "The country is charming," 
writes an enthusiastic correspondent, "and one lingers 
there, and the food is excellent. Even were it not, 
dear old Mile. Julia Guillon is worth a journey. She 
is one of the most delightful of French landladies. 
In the old inn the walls of one large room are covered 
with pictures and sketches given her by her chers 
artistes^ 

QuiMPERLE 

At the Lion d'Or, the old-fashioned, comfortable 
hotel of the town, the food is excellent, and it tastes 
none the worse because it is brought 
^^^ ^ to table by the laughing waitresses all 

dressed in the picturesque dress of the province. 
Another hotel in Brittany, at which four sisters, who 
always wear, or wore, Breton costumes, are the land- 
ladies, is the Hotel Lecadre at Rochefort-en-terre. 

The Loire Country 

Touraine, with its chateau and its pleasant inns, I 
have not yet explored myself, but I hope that before 
this book calls for a fourth edition I shall be able to 
write with personal knowledge on the subject. The 
following items of information have been given to me 
by motorists who have passed through the district and 



French Provincial T'owns 97 

have noted where they have been well cared for at 
inns and hotels. One of them, writing of the 
journey between Orleans and Blois, says, " At Mer, 
the town where one leaves the main road for Taleyur, 
we happened on an inn (the Hotel du Commerce) 
which provided us with rather a good instance of the 
resourcefulness of the French innkeeper, for its out- 
ward appearance, the sanded floor of the room into 
which we were shown, and the fact that it was an off 
day in the town, led us to make up our minds that 
we should be given quite an indifferent meal, but we 
were provided in quite a short time with an excellent 
repast." 

For the cuisine at the Hotel d'Angleterre at Blois, 
several of my correspondents have a good word. At 
Chambord there is an excellent inn, so I am told, 
almost in the shadow of the chateau. It stands by 
itself in the park. One motorist tells me that the 
dejeuner that he and his companions were given at 
this wonderful inn was so good that it decided them 
to stay the day at the inn. I hear also good accounts 
of the cuisine of the Hotel de I'Avenue de Chateau 
at Chaumont. The Univers at Tours is one of the 
best known of provincial French hotels, and I have 
never heard a dissenting opinion as to the excellence 
of its cookery. Authorities are not so well agreed 
as to the cookery at Le Faisan, one critic assuring 
me that it was excellent bourgeois cookery, while 
another is not at all enthusiastic on the subject. 
Praise is given to the dejeuner^ at the Hotel Lion 
d'Or at Langeais, and at Chenonceaux the Hotel 
de Chateau receives nothing but praise. At Saumur 
the Hotel Budon has an excellent cook and a 
cellar of wine which deserves special attention. At 
Nantes the Hotel de France is both in cuisine and 
other matters quite first-class. There do not seem to 
be any very special dishes belonging to the Tyoirc 



98 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

country except the Rilettes de Tours, little pates of 
chicken liver, which in their way are real delicacies. 

Bordeaux 

I make no mention of the Plages d'Ocean which 
lie between the Breton resorts and Bordeaux, for they 
are visited by very few English or Americans, and I 
pass on to the town of clarets and Cepes. 

The restaurant of the Chapon Fin is one of the 
best known in France, and it thoroughly deserves its 
Chapon Fin. ^igh reputation. Its dining-room is a 

7 Rue Montes- great wmter garden with ferns and 
^"^®^ rockeries and a great tree, the trunk of 

which is in the restaurant, the boughs outside the 
roof. MM. Dubois and Mendionde are the pro- 
prietors. The cellar contains a splendid selection of 
good clarets of all the great years and of all the great 
names. The Chapon Fin has of course its own 
especial sole, and there is a Potage Chapon Fin, a 
vegetable soup which is excellent. Lampreys a la 
Bordelaise and crayfish a la Bordelaise, and in the 
autumn Cepes a la Bordelaise, three of the Bordeaux 
dishes, are obtainable at their best at the Chapon Fin. 
I need not warn gourmets how rich these dishes are. 
The Chapon Fin is not cheap ; but its prices are not 
extortionate. 

I should put the restaurant a la carte of the Hotel 
De Bayonne, de Bayonne, a great conservatory, very 
Rue Martinac much on a level with the Chapon 
Fin in the matter of cookery. They are both ex- 
cellent dining-places, though it should be remembered 
that the cuisine of the south is richer and more full- 
Cafe de Bor- flavoured than that of Paris, 
deaux, Place de The Cafe de Bordeaux has on its first 
la Comedie ^^^^ ^ ^^^y pleasant room, the walls of 
which are white and are decorated with many mirrors, 



French Provincial T'owns 99 



AFTER DINNER 

Bordeaux prides itself on the operatic performances 
at its Grand Theatre, and its audiences are very 
critical. It has two other theatres for lighter fare, 
and the Casino des Lilas, on the Boulevard de 
Cauderan, is the music hall of the city. 

Arcachon 

Arcachon, though it is one of the great centres 
of oyster culture, is not a happy hunting ground for 
epicures. The High Life Restaurant, ^..^ ^ife 
attached to the Victoria Hotel, is in Boulevard de 
summer much patronised, and its l^^i^^e 
cookery is good. At the Golden Anchor, in the 
Place de la Marie, you can breakfast for 2.50 francs, 
and dine for 3 francs, and the same prices obtain at 
the Golden Star opposite the Casino. 

The two Casinos, one on the Plage, the other in 
the Forest, are under the same management. The 
Cercle Nautique et des Sports is in the Casino, the 
Cercle des Etrangers is in the Avenue Gambetta, and 
the Cercle d'Arcachon at the Grand Cafe. 



Biarritz 

The average of cookery in the hotels at Biarritz 
is very good, for the competition is very keen ; and as 
money is spent by the handful in this town on the 
bay where the Atlantic rolls in its breakers, any hotel 
which did not provide two excellent table cPhote 
meals would very soon be out of the running. In 
the basement of the building in which is the Big 
Casino, " M. Boulant's Casino," as the natives still 
call it, is a restaurant where a table d'hote lunch and 



loo 'The Goiirmefs Guide to Stirope 

dinner is served ; but the restaurant of Biarritz is the 
one which Ritz established on the first floor of the 

Little Casino, the Casino Municipal, and 

Little Casino u- u ^- ^ c^ ^u d -^ ^ 

which continued, arter the Kitz com- 
pany had ceased to be connected with it, as the ex-Ritz, 
the " ex " being printed very small indeed. One break- 
fasts there in a glazed-in verandah overlooking the 
Plage and the favourite bathing-spot, and at dinner 
one looks across to the illuminated terrace of the other 
Casino. Biarritz depends but little on the surrounding 
country for its food, as the Pays Basque gives few 
good things to the kitchen. Fish is the one excellent 
thing that Biarritz itself contributes to all the menus, 
and the Friture du Fays is always excellent. Here 
is a menu of a little dinner for three at the restaurant 
of the Little Casino. The Minestrone is an excellent 
Italian soup (which, by the way, Oddenino of the 
Imperial in London makes better than I have tasted 
it anywhere else out of Italy) ; the veal, I fancy, came 
from Paris, the ortolans from the far south : — 

Melon. 

Minestron Milanaise. 

Friture du Pays. 

Carre de Veau braise aux Genes. 

Ortolans a la broche. 

Salade de Romaine. 

Coupes d'Entigny. 

I have not kept any bill for this, but I know that, I 
regarded the total as moderate in a town where all 
things in September are at gambler's prices. The 
Royalty, in the main street at Biarritz, is the afternoon 
gathering-place for the young bloods, who sit outside 
on the terrasse and there drink cooling liquids through 
straws out of long tumblers, while the ladies hold 
their parliament at tea-time in Miremont's the con- 
fectioner's shop almost next door, 



French Provincial T'owns loi 



Biarritz Clubs 

Each of the Casinos has its Club Prive for bac- 
carat. A visiting card with a good London address 
is generally all that is required to obtain a ticket of 
admission. 

The County Club, a villa some little distance out- 
side Biarritz, has, I am sorry to say, ceased to be in 
existence for the last few years. There is talk of re- 
establishing it, for its loss is much felt in Biarritz. It 
was a centre of sport. In its grounds were the large 
field in which the Concours Hippique is held, and a 
pigeon-shooting ground. It was a very cosmopolitan 
and very cheerful club. 

The Golf Club is at Anglet, up on the cliffs about 
a mile distant from Biarritz. 

The British Club has a comfortable house in the 
Avenue du Palais. It accepts properly introduced 
visitors as temporary members at 48 francs for a 
month, and half that sum for a fortnight. 



Marseilles 

All the travelling English eat Bouillabaisse at Mar- 
seilles at least once in their lives. If you wish to eat 
the dish of the Phocian town in comfort, take one of 
the tram-cars which run to L'Oriole, or a voiture^ and 
go along the Corniche Road to the Reserve, which 
those of us who are grey-headed still call Roubion's. 
Mons. Echenard, who owns the Reserve, has added 
to the restaurant a very comfortable hotel, which is 
christened The Palace. From the shaded terrace 
there is a lovely view over the bay of Bonne 
Veine. 



102 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

The Reserve is a house of three storeys of balconies 
sheltered from the wind by glass screens. In winter 
The Reserve ^"^ lunches in one of these balconies, 

the Corniche in summer on the terrace. In the sea, 
^°^^ at the foot of the bluff on which the 

restaurant is built, are the tanks, through which the 
salt water flows, in which the fish and oysters are 
kept. You here get the world-renowned Bouillabaisse 
in perfection. 

I suppose it is not necessary for me to give any de- 
scription of what Bouillabaisse is, or how the Southerners 
firmly believe that this dish cannot be properly made 
except of the fish that swim in the Mediterranean ; 
the rascaz, a little fellow all head and eyes, being 
an essential in the savoury stew, along with the eel, 
the lobster, the dory, the mackerel, and the girelle. 
Thackeray has sung the ballad of the dish as he used 
to eat it, and his recette^ because it is poetry, is accepted, 
though it is but the fresh-water edition of the stew. 
If you do not like oil, garlic, and saffron, which all 
come into its composition, give it a wide berth ; but 
I should mention that the Bouillabaisse at the Reserve 
is quite a mild and lady-like stew compared to that 
one gets at Bregailla's or the restaurants of the Rue 
Noailles. 

The best shell-fish are the praires and the clovisses^ 
about the same size as walnuts or little neck clams ; 
the clovisses are the largest, and rather take the place 
of oysters when the latter are not in season, in the 
same way that the clam does in America ; others are 
mussels, oysters, and langoustes. Langoustes differ as 
much as a skinny fowl does from a Poularde de Mans. 
M. Echenard gets his from Corsica, and you then 
learn how they can vary. Praires are rather ex- 
pensive luxuries. They look like marine walnuts. 
When they are split open the gelatinous morsel inside 
is well worth the trouble of the preparatory proceed- 



French 'Provincial T'owns 103 

ings. M. Echenard serves a Poularde Reserve en 
Cocotte Raviolis^ which is a dish to be remembered ; 
his Filets de Sole Sauce Cardinale are excellent, for the 
small fat sole caught between Hyeres and Toulon is 
not to be despised. 

If you wish to taste the Bouillabaisse as the 
Marseillaise themselves eat it, with the saffron and 
garlic in full force, take tram to 
L'Estagne. You will have to pass ^ ^^^^ 

the Abattoirs, which do not form an appetising 
sight ; but when you reach L'Estagne, you will find 
the bon bourgeois and his wife enjoying their fish 
stew immensely, and you can be sure that the fish 
you eat has just been caught from the sea. 

For the curious in such matters, Pascal's, in a smelly 
little square to the east of the Vieux Port, will be in- 
teresting. Pascal, out of pure blague^ Pascal's, 
adds " Gargottier " to his name. Here, Place Thiars 
in what Pascal asserts is its ancient home, you get the 
Bouillabaisse in its fullest strength. Pascal boasts much 
of his grillades^ which we call grills. To give his 
customers privacy Pascal at breakfast time lets down 
a great sun-blind before his restaurant. 

Those adventurous souls with strong stomachs, 
who wish to eat the fry of sea-urchins and other 
highly savoury dishes, with strange Bregaillon's 
shell-fish, and other extraordinary deni- Quay de la 
zens of the deep as their foundation, Pra-^ernite 
should go to Bregaillon's at the Vieux Port. Bre- 
gaillon's has lately absorbed another restaurant, Bosso's 
— or rather Bosso's has absorbed Bregaillon's. Both 
restaurants are much alike. Each has in front of 
it a long stall with shell-fish on it. If you pause a 
moment to look at these a waiter dashes at you and 
shows you the menu of the meal which is being served 
in the restaurant. It is necessary to have a liking for 
garlic and a nose that fears no smells for this ad- 



104 ^^'^^ Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

venture ; but if you bring your courage to the sticking 
point, order a dozen oursins, a petit poelon^ which is a 
tournedos in a casserole^ and a grive. Gigot a F Ail is one 
of the dishes of the house, and a Coquillc des Fruits de 
Mer^ a rechauffe of all the shell-fish of the southern 
sea, is another. A John Dory with a Sauce Poivrade 
is one of Bregaillon's triumphs. Cassis is a white 
wine of the house ; and it has some good Chateau 
Neuf de Pape. The best wine, however, of the 
house is the Pouilly Suisse, the Suisse being the name 
of the proprietor of the vineyard. 

Mistral's, a little more gilded and a little gayer than 
the two restaurants noted above, is next door to them. 
Mistral's,? Que Its proprietor is Alphone Cassino, and 
de la Fraternite its table d'hote meals cost 2.50 francs 
and 3 francs, including half a bottle of white or red 
wine. One can almost smell the garlic as one reads 
this menu of one of the breakfasts : — 

Coquillages ou Hors-d'ceuvre. 

Bouillabaisse ou Loup remoulade. 

Petits des Italienne. 

Entrecote grillee au Cresson. 

Pommes Macaire. 

Dessert. 



^ Vin blanc ou rouge. 

Isnard's, the official name of which is the Hotel 
des Phoceans, at the crossing of two back streets — 
Isnard's, Rue Rues Thubaneau and RecoUettes — ^just 
Thubaneau off ^he Cours Belsunce, is in high 

favour with the upper classes of the Marseillaise. 
The cookery here is always good, and if you order 
Bouillabaisse you have to wait twenty minutes while 
it is cooked for you, and you only. 

The Brasserie de Strasbourg, in the big square 



French Provincial Towns 105 

opposite the Bourse, is where many of the business 
men of the town lunch, and that in Brasserie de 
itself is a proof that the food is good. Strasbourg-, 
On a great slate over the front door ^^^°® ^^ Bourse 
the dishes of the day, all of good southern bourgeois 
cookery, are written in white. 

The English Chop House of Richard, in the Rue 
Pavilion, a little traverse connecting the Cours St. 
Louis with the Rue St. Ferriol, is a Eng-lish chop 
noticeable little place of good cookery. House, 12 Rue 
Richard is a Frenchman, and has been ^^^i^lo^i 
chef in very high places. In full canonicals he stands 
over his hatterie de cuisine and cooks his creations. 
The salon particidier in this little temple of good 
living is screened off, like the squire's pew, by a grille. 

The Cafe Restaurant Boudoul, on the first floor of 
which is the best club of the town, is c^^f^ Boudoul. 
the Carlton of Marseilles. It has a is Rue St. 
fixed price dinner and breakfast. Here ^^"^^^ 
you may be sure that you dine in good company. 

The Hotel d'Orleans, for a plentiful meal at a low 
price ; the Restaurant Gilbert, in the Place de la 
Prefecture, where the Colavery, the wine of the 
house, is excellent ; and the English Grill Room of 
the Hotel Florence, deserve mention. 

AFTER DINNER 

The Grand Theatre is a fine opera-house, and its 
prices are a franc or two higher than those of theatres 
in most provincial towns. Many of the great stars 
of opera appear there. There are two other theatres 
in Marseilles, and operetta is frequently sung at the 
Alcazar, which is a variety hall. The Palais de Crys- 
tal is a music hall where the southern temperament 
can be studied. In times of excitement a Marseilles 
audience can be very noisy. For those men who 



io6 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Bur ope 

hate the idea of going to bed before the small hours, 
Therese's Bar, which opens at midnight and closes 
at early breakfast time, is a refuge. 

Arles 

The first town that most people go to in making the 
round of the old Roman towns of the Midi is Aries. 
Hotel du Forum ^^ exceptionally shaky omnibus takes 
Square du one through narrow streets in which 

Forum ^.j^^ shops are very much of the size 

and type that they must have been in old Roman 
days, and lands one in the little Square du Forum, 
where are the two hotels. The officers mess at the 
Hotel du Nord, but the Hotel du Forum has a highly 
decorated dining-room which is kept fairly Well aired. 
There is little to choose between the feeding at the 
two houses, the cookery of both being Provencal. 
At the Forum the soup will probably be found to be 
a vegetable one with plenty of onions in it, and the 
fish Cocquiiages ; but the surprise of the dinner comes 
with the tender slice of leg of lamb. To judge from 
the mutton one gets throughout Provence the sheep 
that pasture on its great plains must be very well 
favoured. On the wine list are the wines of the 
province — ^red St. Georges and white St. Gilles, and 
there are also the wines of the Rhone, Chateau Neuf 
du Pape, and the rest. Aries is celebrated for its 
sausages, but I was not bold enough to try them. 
The decorations of the dining-room of the Forum 
Hotel appear at first glance to be Japanese, but they 
are really large water-colour works of scenes near 
Aries, and it is the appearance of the groups of 
Arlesiennes in their bright shawls and chappelles, the 
head-dress of black velvet and muslin bows, which orive 
the Japanese tone, the pretty girls of this old Roman 
town somewhat resembling in their costume the little 



French Provincial Towns 107 

Japanese mousmees. Any one who wishes to study 
Provencal local colour will find it in abundance in 
this hotel. The manageress sits in a glass case in the 
hall, which runs up to the roof and a skylight, and 
chats with or scolds all comers ; a pointer chooses 
the centre of the hall floor as a sleeping place ; a pretty 
girl with a shock head of hair arranges flowers and 
eats her breakfast at one and the same time ; a cook 
with a huge black moustache rushes in and out of his 
kitchen, and meals are continuous from sunrise to 
sunset. 

NiMES 

Nimes, from the gastronomic point of view, is a 
more civilised town than Aries. The dining-room at 
the Luxembourg Hotel, which is an Luxembourg 
old-fashioned hostelry with a certain Hotel 
dignity of its own, resembles the banqueting hall of 
some old castle. It has a groined stone ceiling, and all 
its decorations are in keeping with this. The table 
(Thote dinner is an ordinary hotel dinner, but I was 
assured that if I chose to order a dinner of local dishes 
there would be no difficulties made. The St. Gilles 
at this hotel is an exceptionally good wine — so good, 
indeed, that I had serious thoughts of bringing some 
to England to use as a table wine. At the Luxem- 
bourg the commercial travellers sit at a long table in 
the centre of the room, while the tourists — French, 
German, English, and American — sit at the little 
tables by the walls. Perrier is the local mineral 
water, that spring being in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of Nimes. 

The Restaurant Peloux is just across the street 
from the Luxembourg. The restaurant, three rooms 
thrown into one, is on the first floor. Restaurant 
which is reached by a dark staircase. Peloux 
The restaurant, however, is bright enough, its walls 



io8 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

being of buff colour. There is a 3-franc lunch 
and a 4-franc dinner at this restaurant, which is 
patronised by the well-to-do citizens of Nimes. I 
both lunched and dined at the Peloux, but while the 
cookery was quite satisfactory, there was nothing 
especially of note. The Cerons of the house is a very 
good white wine. 



Avignon 

The Hotel de L'Europe is a very pleasant old-world 
hotel kept by three elderly ladies who wear black 
Hotel de silk dresses, who sit in a little office 

L'Europe just off the hall, and spend their spare 

time in knitting. The old head waiter bows one into 
the salon as if one were an ambassador, and when you 
arrive the man who shoulders your luggage and takes 
it up to your room is dressed in evening clothes and 
wears a white tie, just as though he were a waiter. 
The atmosphere of the place is steeped in good 
manners, and there is some old furniture in some of the 
bedrooms well worth looking at. The cookery of the 
house is the old-fashioned provincial cookery of hotels 
in the days when there was distinguished provincial 
cookery. It is not Provencal, for it is not redolent of 
garlic, and there is not too much oil used in it. It is 
too light-handed to be bourgeois, but not up-to-date 
enough to be Parisian. There is a good deal of 
pleasure to be obtained by a stay in this old hotel in 
an old town, and though the table (Vhbte dinner is set 
down to be at a ridiculously early hour, the old head 
waiter will see that it is served at any time. 

The Restaurant de Bagatelle is a little white villa 
with a big wooden shelter alongside of it on the island 
Restaurant de which divides the Rhone into two parts. 
Bagatelle The views from the island of Avignon 

and Villeneuve are beautiful. I breakfasted at this 



French Provincial ''Towns 109 

little restaurant, and found that the trout were quite 
fresh and that the cook who made my omelette had a 
light hand. In the Place de i'Hotel de Ville and on 
the road to the station some of the cafes are also 
restaurants. The Cafe de France has a dejeuner of the 
day which I found quite eatable, and I also breakfasted 
satisfactorily in the little glass house attached to the 
Hotel Crillon. 

PROvENgAL Cookery 

To those gourmets who care to go into the matter 
of Provencal cookery, I can recommend the Cu'i- 
sin'icre Proven^ale^ by J. B. Reboul, which can be 
bought at any of the Provencal towns. From it they 
can learn of what A'lgo-Sau is made, what Aioli and 
Bourride are, how an Oursijiade may be composed, 
and the mode of cooking an anchovy tart, that a 
Tourte is really a Vol-au-vent^ and how to stuff a 
cabbage so as to convert it into a Sou-Fassu. 

Cannes 

Cannes is the first important town of the Riviera 
that the gourmet flying south comes to, and at Cannes 
he will find a typical Riviera restaurant. The Reserve 
at Cannes consists of one glassed-in 
shelter and another smaller building ^ eserve 
on the rocks, which juts out into the sea from the 
elbow of the Promenade de la Croisette. The spnay 
of the wavelets set up by the breeze splashes up against 
the glass. To one side are the lies des Lerins, St. 
Marguerite, and St. Honorat, where the liqueur Lerina 
is made, shining on the deep blue sea, and to the other 
the purple Montagnes de I'Esterel stand up with a 
wonderful jagged edge against the sky. Amongst 
the rocks on which the building of the restaurant 



no T'he Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

stand are tanks, and in these swim fish, large and 
small, the fine lazy dorades and the lively little sea- 
gudgeon. One of the amusements of the place is 
that the breakfasters fish out with a net the little 
fishes which are to form a friture^ or point out the 
bigger victim which they will presently eat for their 
meal. The cooking is simple and good, and with fish 
that thirty minutes before were swimming in the 
green water, an omelette, a simple dish of meat, and 
a pint of Cerons, or other white wine, a man may 
breakfast in the highest content, looking at some of 
the sunniest scenes in the world. There is always 
some little band of Italian musicians playing and 
singing at the Reserve, and though in London one 
would vote them a nuisance, at Cannes the music 
seems to fit in with the lazy pleasure of breakfasting 
almost upon the waves, and the throaty tenor who 
has been singing of Santa Lucia gets a lining of 
francs to his hat. Most of the crowned heads who 
make holiday at Cannes have taken their breakfast 
often enough in the little glass summer-house, but 
the prices are in no way alarming. A new dining 
and supping place has been given to 
e asmo Cannes by the building of the Muni- 

cipal Casino. The Casino stands on the Croisette, 
and the windows of its great white restaurant look on 
to the wide sea-wall and promenade on one side, 
to the harbour on another side, and out to sea on 
a third side. The manager, M. Renaud, is one of 
M. Ritz's lieutenants of old days, and everything is 
done with the finish of a first-class establishment. It 
is the place at which most of the fashionable dinner- 
parties of Cannes are now given. It is not cheap, but 
all the prices are marked against the dishes on the bill 
of fare, and no man need order an expensive meal 
unless he is inclined to do so. I found that my average 
bill for breakfast c<ime to between 8 ^nd lo francs, 



French T^rovincial Towns 



1 1 1 



and that I dined very well, without wine, for about 
12 francs. The Casino restaurant is a distinct gain to 
Cannes, and it is the correct thing to drink five o'clock 
tea in the big hall of the Casino, where the band 
plays. A small orchestra of Tziganes plays at lunch 
and dinner in the restaurant. The ladies also gather at 
tea-time at the white building, where Mme. Rumple- 
mayer sells cakes and tea and coffee, or at Rohr's ; 
and the Gallia also has a clientele of tea-drinkers, for 
whose benefit the band plays of an afternoon. 

Cannes Clubs 

Clubs play a very important part in the life of 
Cannes. A little house built in the expectation that 
King Edward would come to the town and occupy 
it was converted into the Cercle de I'Union, which 
was really a British club though a Russian Grand 
Duke founded it. It was a particularly snug and 
home-like club. Alas that I should have to chronicle 
its demise, and the absorption by the Cercle Nautique 
of its permanent members. 

The big French club, to which many of the 
British residents belong, is the Cercle Nautique, the 
great building on the Croisette. A band sometimes 
plays on its terrace ; club dinners are frequently held, 
as well as the daily house dinner, and there is a 
baccarat-room. A Ladies' Club, which has its own 
rooms, and which gives suppers and dances, is part 
of the Cercle Nautique, and so is a theatre to which 
the public is admitted when charity performances 
are given there. The fashionable place from 
which to view the Battles of Flowers is the raised 
terrace of the Cercle Nautique. This club admits 
properly introduced visitors on very easy terms. A 
house-boat, a very big house-boat, known as Noah's 
Ark, and moored in the harbour, is another nautical 



1 1 2 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

club, and is a very merry one during Carnival time. 
The Cercle Prive of the Casino is the usual baccarat 
club attached to every Casino. A card v^^ith a good 
London club address and a louis entrance fee are the 
requisites for admission. 

The fame of the golf links at La Napoule has gone 
out to all lands, and in the club-house many people 
who never hit a ball sit down to lunch ; for the club 
is a very fashionable social centre. 

The Cannes Polo Club is the latest addition to the 
clubs. Its ground lies to the left as you enter Man- 
delieu from Cannes. A large number of polo ponies 
are at the disposal of the members. Captain Lambert 
is its honorary secretary. 

AFTER DINNER 

Baccarat at the Casino Club is the usual fashionable 
after-dinner pastime, but the performances of comedy 
and opera in the theatre of the Casino are well worth 
going to, as a rule. The theatre of the Cercle 
Nautique is used chiefly for performances for various 
charities. A little music hall, which styles itself a 
Casino, changes its programme every week. It is 
chiefly patronised by the townspeople. 

Nice 

At Nice the London House was one of the classical 
restaurants of France, and one talked of it in com- 
parison with the great houses of the boulevards of the 
capital. It was a little too solemn and dull for the 
present day, and it has now*, in the hands of some 
enterprising ladies, become a tea-house, as which, no 
doubt, it will flourish. 

The little Restaurant Fran^ais, on the Promenade 
des Anglais, is one of the cheeriest places possible tg 



French Provincial Towns 1 1 3 

breakfast at on a sunny morning. In the garden are 

palm-trees, and the tables are further shaded by great 

pink and white umbrellas. A scarlet- „ ^ 

^ 1 1 1 r TT • 1 • Restaurant 

coated band or Hungarians plays m- Fran9ais, Pro- 

ofFensive music under the verandah of menade des 
the house, and the page and the chasseur 
water the road before the garden constantly with a 
fire-hose, in order that the motor-cars which go rush- 
ing past shall not smother the breakfast-eaters with 
dust. Broiled eggs and asparagus points, a trout fresh 
from the river Loup — if such a fish is on the bill of 
fare — and some tiny bird either roasted or en casserole^ 
with some light white wine, is a suitable meal to be 
eaten in this garden of a doU's-house restaurant. 

The Restaurant de la Mediterranee in the same 
building as the big club is one of the Restaurant de la 
most up-to-date dining places in Nice. Mediterranee 

The Helder Restaurant used to be a very fashion- 
able one ; but of late years it has gradu- The Helder, 
ally sunk its prices to bring in a larger Place Massena 
clientele, and it has finally become a Brasserie, at 
which, however, quite good food is obtainable. 

Caressa's in the Avenue de la Gare, which is a 
charcutier's shop, much in favour with caressa's 
the Nicois, has added a grill-room to Avenue de la 
its premises. ^^® 

In summer days, before the smart restaurants open, 
all that is smart in Nice goes to the Lyonais, Rue 
restaurant of the Cafe Lyonais, in the Biscarra 
Rue Biscarra. 

The Belle Meuniere, to which the revellers who 
have been over to Monte Carlo often return to sup, 
keeps open till all hours ot the morning ; Ernest's 
prides itself on being the Maxim's of Nice, and the 
Regence, which is now managed by Marius from 
Ciros, and the Garden Bar are tv/o other resorts ot 
the young bloods of all nationalities. 

H 



114 T'he Gourfnefs Guide to Europe 

The restaurant attached to the Cercle Prive of 
the Casino Municipal is a good one, though apt to 
Casino Muni- ^e crowded at dinner-time when all 
cipal, Place the baccarat tables are in play. It ran 

Massena ^j^^ Helder hard in the race for fashion- 

able patronage. It is quite one of the places at which 
a visitor should dine. 

Vogade in the Place Massena, and Rumplemayer's 
on the Boulevard Victor Hugo, are the two fashion- 
able tea-shops. 

Nice Clubs 

A delay of a few hours and a louis as subscription 
passes any man who belongs to a good British club 
into the Cercle Massena of the Municipal Casino. 
There is another baccarat club in the Palais de la 
Jetee. The Cercle Mediterranee, on the Promenade 
des Anglais, has a fine club-house. It has matinees 
dansantes to which all the cosmopolitan society of 
Nice goes. It has also its card-rooms. The restaurant 
in the building is managed by M. Simonini, one of 
Ciro's maitres (Thotel in old days. The subscription 
to the club for temporary members, who must be duly 
proposed and seconded, is 240 francs for the season ; 
60 francs a month. The Mediterranee ranks with 
the Cercle Nautique of Cannes as a club of the 
highest standing. 

The golf links and club-house are at Cagnes, which 
is easily reached either by train or tram. 



AFTER DINNER 

The Municipal Casino has a winter garden which 
is a pleasant lounge in the afternoon and in the evening, 
and its theatre is kept busy with performances of 



French Provincial Towns 115 

comedy or operetta, most of the good travelling com- 
panies which tour in the winter playing short seasons 
here. The Casino de la Jetee also, has a theatre, 
where operettas or a music hall entertainment are 
generally the attraction, and in the town there are 
the Olympia and Eldorado, each calling itself a Casino, 
where operetta is usually the attraction. There is 
also a new theatre behind La Belle Meuniere. At 
the Opera House, grand opera, often some quite 
new production, is sung on most days in the winter. 
The Capucines is a theatre which some winters 
opens, some winters is closed. 



Beaulieu 

At Beaulieu the Restaurant de la Reserve is famous. 
It is just a convenient distance for a drive from 
Monte Carlo, and the world and the half-world drive 
or motor out there from the town on the rock and 
sit at adjacent tables in the verandah without show- 
ing any objection one to the other. The restaurant 
is a little white building in a garden, with a long 
platform built out over the sea, so that breakfasting 
one looks right down upon a blue depth of water. 
There are tables inside the building, but the early- 
comers, and those wise people who have telephoned 
for tables, take those in the verandah if the day be 
sunny. There are tanks into which the water runs 
in and out with each little wave, and in these are 
the Marennes oysters and other shell-fish. Oysters, 
a Mostelle a P Anglaise — Mostelle being the especial 
fish of this part of the world — and some tiny bit of 
meat is the breakfast I generally order at the Beaulieu 
Reserve ; but the cook is capable of high flights, and 
I have seen most elaborate meals well served. 



1 1 6 T^he Gourmef $ Guide to Europe 



Monte Carlo 

The first time that I stayed for a week or so in the 
principality, I lodged at the Hotel du Monte Carlo, 
on the hill below the Post Office. It was a ding;y 
hotel then, and the idea of converting it into the 
splendid sporting club had not yet entered M. 
Blanc's mind ; but it had the supreme attraction to 
a lieutenant in a marching regiment of being cheap. 
When the first day at dinner I cast my eye down the 
wine-list, I found amongst the clarets wines of the 
great vintage years at extraordinarily low prices, and 
in surprise I asked the reason. The manager ex- 
plained to me that the hotel was in the early days 
used as a casino, and that the wines formed part of 
the cellar of the proprietor — whether M. Blanc, or 
another, I do not remember. Most of them were 
too old to bear removal to Paris, and they were put 
down on the wine-list at ridiculously low prices in 
order to get rid of them, for, as the manager said, 
"In Monte Carlo the winners drink nothing but 
champagne, the losers water or whisky and soda." 
So it is. In Monte Carlo, when a man has won, he 
wants the very best of everything, and does not mind 
what he pays for it ; when he has lost, he has no 
appetite, and grudges the money he pays for a chop 
in' the grill-room of the Cafe de Paris. The prices 
at the restaurants are nicely adapted to the purses of 
the winners; and there is no place in the world where 
it is more necessary to order with discrimination and 
to ask questions as to prices. At Monte Carlo it is 
the custom to entirely dissociate your lodging from 
your feeding, and you may stay at one hotel and 
habitually feed at the restaurant of another without 
the proprietor of the first being at all unhappy, Ciro's 



Prench Provincial 'Towns 1 1 7 

in the arcade is a restaurant only, or rather a res- 
taurant and a grill-room and bar, and is very smart, 
and not at all cheap. A story is told Giro's, Galerie 
that an Englishman, new to Monte Charles lii. 
Carlo and its ways, asked the liveried porter outside 
Giro's whether it was a cheap restaurant. ^' Not 
exactly cheap," said the Machiavelian servitor, " but 
really very cheap for what you get here." On a fine 
day grand duchesses and the haute cocotterie beseech 
Giro to reserve tables for them on the balcony look- 
ing out on the sea, and unless you are a person of 
great importance or notoriety, or of infinite push, 
you will find yourself relegated to a place inside the 
restaurant. At dinner there is not so much com- 
petition. Giro himself is a little Italian, who speaks 
broken English, and has a sense of humour which 
carries him over all difficulties. Every day brings 
some fresh story concerning the little man, and a 
typical one is his comforting assurance to some one 
who complained of an overcharge for butter. " Alia 
right," said Giro complacently, " I take him off your 
bill and charge him to the Grand Duke. He not 
mind." The joke is sometimes against Giro, as when, 
anxious to have all possible luxuries for a great British 
personage who was going to dine at the restaurant, 
and knowing that plovers' eggs are much esteemed in 
England, he obtained some of the eggs, boiled them, 
and served them hot. Giro's restaurant originally was 
where his bar now is ; but when the Gafe Riche, 
almost next door, was sold, he bought it, redecorated 
it, and transferred his restaurant to the new and more 
gorgeous premises, putting his brother Salvatore — who, 
poor fellow, has since died — in charge of the bar 
which he established in his old quarters. I cannot 
put my hand on the menu of any of the many break- 
fasts I have eaten at Giro's, so I borrow a typical 
menu from V. B.'s interesting little book. Ten Days 



1 1 8 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

at Monte Carlo. He and three friends ate and drank 
this at dejeuner : — 

Hors d'oeuvre varies. 

OEufs poches Grand Due. 

Mostelle a I'Anglaise. 

Volaille en Casserole a la Fermiere. 

Patisserie. 

Fromage. 

Cafe. 

I Magnum Carbonnieux 1891. 

Fine Champagne 1846. 

This feast cost 61 francs. The Mostelle, as I have 
previously mentioned, is the special fish of this part 
of the coast. It is as delicate as a whiting, and is 
split open, fried, and served w^ith bread crumbs and 
an over-sufficiency of melted butter. 

Of course Giro always provides something new each 
year for his customers to talk about. One year all 
Monte Garlo was surprised to find that a dried haddock, 
as cooked in the Galerie, was very delicious. Another 
year everybody at Giro's ate their caviare between two 
small very hot pancakes. In the winter 1907-8 a new 
silver grill dazzled the eyes of all his clients. The 
winter of 1910-11 has seen the promotion of M. 
Rizzi from the post of mattre d'hote! at the Hotel 
France to be Giro's partner. Giro proposes to retire 
from business in three years time. 

At Monte Garlo one is given everything that can 
be imported and which is expensive. The salmon 
comes from Scotland or Sweden, and most of the 
other material for the feasts is sent down daily from 
Paris. The' thrushes from Gorsica, and some very 
good asparagus from Genoa or Roquebrune, are about 
the only provisions which come from the neighbour- 
hood, except of course the fish, which is plentiful and 
excellent. I was one spring entrusted with the 



French Provincial T'owns 1 1 9 

ordering of a dinner for six at the restaurant of 
the Hotel de Paris, the most frequented of all the 
dining-places at Monte Carlo, and I Hotel de Paris 
told M. Fleury, the manager, that 
I wanted as much local colour introduced into it as 
possible. He referred me to the chef, and between us 
we drew up this menu, which certainly has something 
of the sunny south about it : — 

Hors d'ceuvre et Caviar frais. 

Creme de Langoustines. 

Friture de Nonnats. 

Sella d'Agneau aux Primieurs. 

Becassines roties. 

Salade Nigoise. 

Asperges de Genes. 

Sauce Mousseline 

Dessert. 

ViNS. 

I bottle Barsac. 
3 bottles Pommery Vin Nature 1892. 

To crown this feast we had some of the very old 
brandy, a treasure of the house, which added 60 francs 
to the bill The total was 363 francs 10 centimes. 

In this dinner the Creme de Langoustines was excel- 
lent, a most delightful bisque. The nonnats are the 
small fry of the bay, smaller far than whitebait, and 
are delicious to eat. They are perhaps more suitable 
for breakfast than for a dinner of ceremony, and had 
I not yearned for local colour I should have ordered 
the Filets de Sole Egyptiennes in little paper coffins, 
which look like mummy cases, a dish which is one of 
the specialties of the house. 

Dining at the Hotel de Paris one pays in comfort 
for its popularity, for on a crowded night the tables in 
the big dining-room are put so close together that 
there is hardly room for the waiters to move between 



120 'The Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

them, and the noise of the conversation rises to a roar 

through which the violins of the band outside the 

door can barely be heard. 

The restaurant of the Grand Hotel, v^^here MM. 

Noel and Pattard themselves see to the comfort of 

their guests, is also a fashionable dining-place. I first 

tasted the Sole Waleska^ W\\\\ its delicate flavouring of 

Parmesan, at the Grand Hotel many 

Grand Hotel j v u i u c 

years ago, and it has always been one or 

the special dishes of the house. This is a menu of a 

dinner for six given at the Grand, as a return for 

the one quoted above of the Hotel de Paris : — 

Creme Livonienne. 

Filets de Sole Waleska. 

Baron de Pauillac a la Broche. 

Puree de Champignons. 

Petits Pois Nouveaux. 

Merles de Corse. 

Salade. 

Asperges. Sauce Mousseline. 

Souffle du Parmesan. 

Friandises. 

Unfortunately I have lost the bill of this feast. 

A Poularde Santos Dumont — a boiled chicken stuffed 
with a variety of rich good things and served with a 
brown sauce — is one of the creations of the chef of 
the Grand. 

The Hermitage, in which MM. Benoit and 
Fourault are interested, has quite the most beautiful 
The Hermitage dining-room in Monte Carlo. It has a 
' clientele which is just as lavish as the 

diners at Giro's and the Paris. Indeed one may 
frequently see the most wealthy people of three con- 
tinents dining at neighbouring tables in the beautiful 
Hermitage dining-room. Other people collect stamps 
and butterflies, the proprietors of the Hermitage have 
a fad of collecting multi-millionaires. The following 



French Provincial T'owns 121 

is a dinner for five people at the Hermitage, the cost 
of which was 100 francs a head : — 

Hors d'oeuvre. 

Caviar d'Astrakan. 

Petite Marmite Henri IV. 

Langouste Thermidor. 

Supremes de volaille Gismonda. 

Perdreaux Souwaroif. 

Coeurs de Laitues. 

Asperges d'Argenteuil — See. Mousseline. 

Souffle Hermitage. 

Glace Armenonviile. 

Panier de Friandises. 

Fruits. 

ViNS. 

Chateau Margaux 1875. 
Moet Brut 1884. 
Grande fine Champagne des Tuileries. 

The Sporting Club and the Palais du Soleil both 
have restaurants, and both are con- The Sporting 
trolled by the Blanc-Fleury interest. ^^^^ 
M. Schipper, from the Cafe de Paris, is this year 
the manager of the Sporting Club restaurant, and has 
revived the glories of Roumanian cookery there. 

There are other restaurants not so expensive as the 

ones I have written of, and further up the hill, which 

can give one a most admirable dinner. ^^^ Helder 

The Helder is one of the restaurants 

where the men who have to live all their winters at 

Monte Carlo often breakfast and dine ; and Aubanel's 

Restaurant, at the top of the gardens, the Princess', 

which one of the 2;reat stars of the 

r>, 1 11 ^ • J The Princess' 

Opera has very regularly patronised, 

deserves a special good word. The Restaurant Re, 

which was originally a fish and oyster ^ ^ ^„, 
, , , .°, . -^ •' Restaurant Re 

shop, but which is now a restaurant 

with fish as its specialty, is also an excellent place for 



122 77/f Gourmefs Guide to ^ Europe 

men of moderate means. Madame Re learned the 
art of the kitchen at the Reserve at Marseilles, and 
she knows as much about the cooking of fish as any 
woman in the world. When it came to my turn in 
the interchange of dinners for six to provide a feast, I 
went to Madame Re and asked her to give me a fish 
dinner, and to keep it as distinctive as possible of the 
principality, and she at once saw what I wanted and 
entered into the spirit of it. She met me on the 
evening of the feast with a sorrowful expression on 
her handsome face, for she had sent a fisherman out 
very early in the morning into the bay to catch some 
of the little sea hedgehogs which were to form one 
course, but he had come back empty-handed. The 
menu stood as under, and we none of us missed the 
hedgehogs : — 

Canape de Nonnats. 

Soupe de poisson Monegasque. 

Supions en Buisson. 

Dorade Bonne Femme. 

Volaille Rotie. 

Langouste Parisienne. 

Asperges Vinaigrette. 

Dessert. 

The ^oupe Monegasque had a reminiscence in it of 
Bouillabaisse^ but it was not too insistent ; the supions 
were octopi, but delicate little gelatinous fellows, not 
leathery, as the Italian ones sometimes are ; the dorade 
was a splendid fish 5 and though I fancy the langouste 
had come from Corsican waters and not from the bay, 
it was beautifully fresh and a monster of its kind. 

The Riviera Palace has a restaurant to which many 
p. . people come to breakfast, high above 

Monte Carlo and its heat, and the cook 
is a very good one. 

Any mad Englishman who like myself takes long 



French Provincial 'Towns 123 

walks in the morning, will find the restaurant at the 

La Turbie terminus of the mountain ^ m ^• 

., 1 , , . , La Turbie 

railway a pleasant place at which to eat 

early breakfast ; and the view from the terrace, where 

one munches one's petit pain and drinks one's coffee 

and milk, with an orange tree on either side of the 

table, is a superb one. 

After the tables are closed the big room at the 

Cafe de Paris in Monte Carlo fills up with those who 

require supper or a " nightcap " before going home ; 

and though a sprinkling of ladies may be seen there, 

the half-world much preponderates. The night birds 

continue the evening at the Carlton, where the lights 

are not put out until the small hours, and see daylight 

at the Austria. 

Monte Carlo Clubs 

The Sporting Club, which was established to save 
the gamblers who went over to Nice to play baccarat 
the fatigue of a train journey, is the club of the 
principality. 

Some golf links, 2000 feet above the sea, have been 
made at Mont Agel. 

AFTER DINNER 

The directors of the great Monte Carlo industry — 
that of winning the money of gamblers — do not en- 
courage their guests to stray too far away from the 
gaming tables. The concerts in the Casino theatre 
and the performances of opera are world-renowned, 
but it is often not easy for ordinary visitors to obtain 
tickets for seats during the opera season. There are 
comediettas and operettas at the little glass palace in 
the Casino gardens, but they are usually performed of 
an afternoon. A new theatre on the Condamine, for 



124 ^'^^^ Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

the benefit of the people of Monaco, is amongst the 
proposed improvements which are to come from the 
profits of the tables. 



Mentone 

Mentone has splendid tea-shops at Rumpelmayer's 
and Eckenberg's. A pleasant restaurant at which to 
The Winter lunch is that of the Winter Palace, and 

Palace the Belle Vue has been improved by a 

new dining-room. Many people drive from Monte 
Carlo to lunch or take tea at the Cap Martin Hotel, 
and it is a pleasant place with a splendid view from 
the great terrace. Another favourite restaurant at the 
end of a drive is the Restaurant des Rochers Rouges, 
just across the Italian frontier. 

Mentone has at last obtained its much - needed 
Casino, containing all that is necessary to make it a 
success, on the ground of the Chateau du Louvre. 
Mentone has its club, to which the subscription is 
100 francs for the season, or 25 francs a month. It 
has also its golf club. 



The Pyrenees 

As a gastronomic guide to the Pyrenees I cannot 
do better than introduce to you my very good friend 
C. P., who knows that part of the world as well as 
any native, and whose taste is unimpeachable. I 
therefore stand down and let him speak for himself: — 

Throughout the Pyrenees, in nine hotels out of ten, 
you can obtain a decently cooked luncheon or dinner 
— neither above nor below the average. 

But in order to depart from the beaten track of the 
ordinary menu, abandon all hypocrisy, oh, intelligent 
traveller ! and do not pretend that you can turn a 



French Provincial 'Towns 125 

fastidious nose away from the seductions of the burnt 
onion and the garlic clove, the foundations upon which 
rests the whole edifice of Pyrenean cooking. Phari- 
saical density would be only wasting time, for these 
two vegetables will be your constant companions so 
soon as you decide to sample the cuisine bourgeoise of the 
country. You should on no account fail to venture 
on this voyage of exploration, as some of the dishes 
are excellent, all of them interesting, and, once tasted, 
never to be forgotten. 

To attempt to enumerate them all, to describe them 
minutely, or to give any account of their preparation, 
hardly comes within the scope of these notes. Suffice 
it to give the names of two or three. 

First comes the Garhure^ a kind of thick vegetable 
soup containing Heaven knows what ingredients, but 
all the same sure to please you. Next comes the 
Confit (FOie^ a sort of goose stew, utterly unlike any- 
thing you have tasted before, but not without its 
merits. Next, the Cotelettes (V I'z.ard marine may in- 
terest you. The izard, or chamois of the Pyrenees, 
has been marine or soaked for some time in wine, 
vinegar, bay leaves, and other herbs. It thus acquires 
a distinctive and novel flavour. Don't forget the 
Ragout and the Poulet^ either chasseur or else paysanne ; 
nor yet the Pie de Mars if in season. By way of fish 
you will always find the trout delicious, either fried or 
else a la meuniere. (Don't miss the alose if you are at 
Pau.) Lastly, the Pyrenean pates^ Gibier and Foie de 
Canard^ are justly celebrated, and can more than hold 
their own in friendly and patriotic rivalry with any of 
those purporting to come from Strasbourg or Nancy. 

At first acquaintance you will not care much for 
pic-a-pou or the wine of the country, but with patience 
you may possibly learn to appreciate the Vin de Juran- 
con. Tradition has it that Henri Quatre's nurses 
preferred to give this form of nourishment rather than 



126 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

the Mellin's Food of the time. Perhaps babies were 
differently constituted in those days. 

In any case you will always be able to get a good 
bottle of claret, bearing the name of some first-class 
Bordeaux firm, such as Johnson, Barton Guestier, or 
Luze, &c. If you are lucky enough to obtain a glass 
of genuine old Armagnac, you will probably rank it, 
as a liqueur, very nearly as high as any cognac you 
have ever tasted. 

A word of warning ! Don't be too eager to order 
whisky and soda. The " Scotch " is not of uniform 
quality. 

So much for eatables and drinkables. A few hints 
now as to where you might care to lunch or dine. 

Pau 

To begin with Pau. There is really a great artist 
there — a man whose sole hobby is his kitchen ; and 
who, if he chooses, can send you up a dinner second 
to none. His name is Guichard. Go and have a 
talk with him. Hear what he has to say on tho. fond- 
de-cuisine theory. Let him arrange your menu and 
await the result with confidence. That confidence 
will not be misplaced. 

For general comfort the English Club stands easily 
first, and the Englishman who has been privileged to 
become a temporary member will find that the coffee 
room is admirably " run," and as for wine and cigars 
Palais d'Hiver, they are the best that money can buy. 
Pare Beaumont For a supper after the play you should 
give a trial to the restaurant of the Palais d'Hiver. 

The Gassion and the France, the two leading 
hotels, have both been renovated. The France has 
Hotel de France, a particularly good restaurant, and M. 
Place Royale Campagna, who came from the Casino 
Belle Vue at Biarritz, is in supreme command there. 



French 'Provincial Towns 127 

This is a menu of a dinner which Comte Roman 
Potoki gave in the restaurant : — 

Hors d'oeuvre a la Russe. 

Green Turtle. Puree de Grives au Pain Noir. 

Pinces de Homard a la Hongroise. 

Selle de Veau a la Doria. 

Spooms au Cliquot. 

Tinamons de Meriel Truffes. 

Salade Potoki. 

Peches Dame Blanche. 

Excellences. 

For confectionery, cakes, candied fruits, &c., Luc 
or Seghin will be found quite Ai ; whilst for five 
o'clock tea, Madame Bouzoum has deservedly gained 
a reputation as great as that of Rumpelmayer on the 
Riviera. 

The golf-links and club-house at Billiere are the 
oldest, with two exceptions, in the world — outside 
Scotland, of course. 

Throughout the mountain resorts of the Pyrenees, 
such as Luchon, Bagneres de Bigorre, Gavarnie, St. 
Sauveur, Cauterets, Eaux Chaudes, Oloron, &c., you 
can always, as was stated previously, rely upon getting 
an averagely well-served luncheon or dinner, and 
nothing more — trout and chicken, although excellent, 
being inevitable. For the Hotel de Hotel de France, 
France at Eaux Bonnes I can say Eaux Bonnes 
something which is warmer praise than this, for its 
cookery is quite beyond reproach. At Argeles- 
Gazoust there is a choice of two good dining and 
lunching places — the Hotel du Pare, Hotel du Pare, 
kept by M. Lassus, and the Hotel de Argeies 
France, where young Peyrafitte controls the kitchen 
which his father, " Papa " Peyrafitte, made famous. 
" Papa " has retired, but now and Hotel de France, 
again comes to the Hotel de France Arg-eles 
to see that his son does not fall away from the family 



128 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

traditions. " Papa " loved his cooking pots as a fond 
father loves his children ; to see him in his kitchen 
was to see a master of his art in his studio ; he 
understood exactly how local colour should be intro- 
duced ; and he loved, over a glass of quinquina and 
vermouth, to chat with any enthusiast of a like kidney. 
In conclusion, should you find yourself anywhere 
near Lourdes at the time of the Pelerinage National, 
go and dine at one of the principal hotels there — say 
the Hotel de la Grotte. You will not dine either 
well or comfortably, the pandemonium being inde- 
scribable. But you will have gained an experience 
which you will not readily forget. Adishat J 

Aix-les-Bains 

Most of the French cure places are for invalids and 
invalids only, and the gourmet who goes to them has 
to lay aside his critical faculties and to be content 
with the simplest fare, well or indifferently cooked, 
according to his choice of an hotel. 

Aix-les-Bains, the big Savoy town of baths, is the 
principal exception to the rule, for the baccarat in the 
two Casinos draws all the big gamblers in Europe to 
the place, and one half of Aix-les-Bains goes to 
bed about the time that the other half is being 
carried in rough sedan chairs to be parboiled and 
massaged. 

In the late spring there is an exodus from the 
Riviera to Aix - les - Bains ; doctors, mattres cfhotel^ 
musicians, lawyers, fly-men, waiters, move into summer 
quarters ; and any one who has time to spare, and 
enjoys a three-day drive through beautiful scenery, 
might well do worse than make a bargain with a 
fly-man for the trip from the coast to the town 
on the banks of the lake. When a fly-man does not 
secure a " monsieur " as a passenger, he as often as 



French Provincial T'owns 129 

not drives a brace of friendly waiters over just for 

company sake. Thus any gourmet who knows his 

Riviera finds himself surrounded by friendly faces at 

Aix-les-Bains. There are excellent restaurants in 

some of the larger hotels, and you can dine in a 

garden, under lanterns lit by electric light, or on a 

glassed-in terrace whence a glimpse of the lake of Le 

Bourget under the moon may be obtained. 

The restaurants of the Casino, the Cercle as it 

styles itself, and of the Villa des Fleurs, are naturally 

the dining-places to which any one Th c 1 

who is tired of his hotel table d'hote 

goes. I have always been well treated at both, and 

have always regarded the restaurant of the Villa des 

Fleurs as one of those dining-places .,.„ . _ 

, . , , 111 Villa des Fleurs 

where one is mvariably well treated. 

But I find that it is wise to inquire each season who 

is the maitre cVhotel at each, to ask as to the chef's 

qualifications, and whether the service is good. 

The one restaurant for which every one always has 
a good word is that attached to Nicola's Bar, opposite 
the entrance to the Casino. Nicola is a Nicola's 
bright little Italian, who marked him- 
self first in my memory by charging me two francs 
for a whisky and soda at his bar. His catering for 
his tiny restaurant, which is under a canopy, is fault- 
less. He will not have any salt-water fish in his 
larder, for Aix in summer is so hot that sea-fish do 
not alv/ays come to table quite fresh, and this risk 
he will not run in the interest of his clients. Nicola's 
prices are not low, but his chef's cookery is first-rate, 
and all the material beyond reproach. 

Many of the excursions from Aix have a little 
restaurant as the point to be reached. At Grand 
Port, the fishing village on the borders geaurivage 
of the lake of Le Bourget, there is a 
pleasant house to breakfast at, the Beauriva2;e, with 

^ i 



130 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

a garden from which an excellent view of the lake 
and the little bathing-place can be obtained. They 
make a Bouillabaisse of fresh-water fish at this restau- 
rant which is well worth eating, and which is gener- 
ally the Friday fare there. At Chambotte, where 
there is a fine view of the lake, Lansard has a hotel 
and restaurant. At Marlioz, near the race-course 
and an inhalation and bathing establishment, the 
pretty ladies of Aix often call a halt to breakfast, 
Ecrevisses Bordelaises being a specialty. At the little 
mountain inn at La Chambotte, the proprietor has 
married a Scotch wife, and her excellent cakes, made 
after the manner of her fatherland, come as a surprise 
to the French tourists. The chalets at the summit of 
the Grand Revard belong, I believe, to Mme. Ritz, 
wife of the Emperor of Hotels, and the feeding there 
naturally is excellent. 

Most people who go a trip to the Lac d'Annecy 
breakfast on the boat, though I believe there is a 
fair breakfast to be obtained at the Angleterre. On 
the boat a very ample meal is provided — the trout 
2;enerally being excellent — which occupies the atten- 
tion of the intelligent voyager during the whole of 
the time that he is supposed to be looking at water- 
falls, castles, peaks, and picturesque villages. 

A run over to Allevard les Bains on a motor will in- 
troduce you to " Les Quatres Bouledogues" — Richard 
Les Ouatres ^^^ proprietor and his three animal 

Bouledogues, bull-dogs being the four. Richard is 
AUevard ^ humorist. He is a capital cook ; he 

writes poetry — of a kind ; and edits a newspaper. 
These are the specialites of the Quatre, which the 
restaurant is called for short : Petites Croustades a la 
Lucullus^ CEufs a la d' Orleans^ Tripailles Richard^ Tete 
de cochon a la Deibler^ Pain de Volaille a la Chevaliere^ 
Alhamhra de Canetons^ Turban de Queues de Langoustes 
a la MoKovite^ Tesckea an Kirsch d^ Allevard (Sauce 



French Provincial Towns 131 

Sabayon\ Cafe pure chicoree^ Sirop de Parapluies toujours 
frais. 

AFTER DINNER 

The two Casinos, each having its theatre and each 
being quite catholic in the matter of entertainments, 
giving opera, operetta, variety shows, and fireworks, 
supply all the after-dinner needs of Aix, and the Club 
Prives put no unnecessary difficulties in the way of 
respectable strangers becoming members. 

Vichy 

Outside the hotels, the restaurants attached to 
which give in most cases a good table cVhote dinner 
for 6 francs and a dejeuner for 4, there are but few 
restaurants, for most people who come to Vichy live 
en pension^ making a bargain with their hotel for their 
food for so much a day — a bargain which does not 
encourage them to go outside and take their meals. 
The Casino of course has its restaurant. The 
Alhambra Taverne is a restaurant and Brasserie in 
the Rue Sornin, and the Fran^ais is in the Rue 
du Marchc. There are several small restaurants in 
the environs of Vichy. In the valleys of the Sichon 
and the Jolan, two streams which join near the 
village of Cusset and then flow into the Allier, are 
two little restaurants, each to be reached by a carriage 
road. Both the Restaurant les Malavaux near the 
ruins, and the Restaurant de I'Ardoisiere near the 
Cascade of Gourre-Saillant, have their dishes, each 
of them making a specialty of trout and crayfish from 
the little river that flows hard by. At the Montagne 
Verte, whence a fine view of the valley of the Allier 
is obtainable, and at one or two other of the places to 
which walks and drives are taken, there are cafes and 
inns where decent food is obtainable. 



132 T'lie Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

The golf club, under the management of M. Aletti, 
is a flourishing institution, and the links are sporting 
ones. 

EviAN 

Evian, the most French of all the French watering- 
places, depends on its hotel restaurants for its good 

„ ^ , „ , meals. The terrace of Hotel Royal, 

Hotel Royal i-ii 1 juii- 

high above the town and the lake, is 

a delightful open air dining-place in warm weather. 

M. Metivier, who came from the Esplanade Hotel, 

the hotel owned by the Ritz syndicate in Berlin, is 

the maitre chef^ and M. Ali, the clever Egyptian, 

well known as the maftre dVwtel of the Armenonville 

in Paris, occupies a like position at the Royal in the 

late summer. The cooking is good, and nowhere can 

one eat to better advantage the Ombre, the king of 

all fishes that swim in the Lake of Geneva. 

The Splendide and the Hermitage, the two other 

large hotels of Evian, are above the average in their 

cuisine. 



Ill 

BELGIAN TpWNS 

The Food of the Country — Antwerp — Spa — Ostende — -Bruges — 
Heyste— Blankenberghe — Nieuport, 

I CANNOT do better in commencing this chapter than 
to introduce you to Mr. Horace Lennard, Htterateur 
and "fin gourmet," who knows his Belgium better 
than most natives of that country, who has written 
the notes on " the food of the country," on several of 
the towns, and to whom I am indebted for the entire 
succeeding chapter on the Brussels restaurants. 

The Food of the Country 

The Belgian is a big eater and a bird-eater. As 
a rule, in Belgium the restaurant that can put forth 
the longest menu will attract the most customers. 
There are people in Brussels who regularly travel 
out to Tirlemont, a little Flemish town nearly twenty 
miles away, to partake of a famous table d'hote dinner 
to which the guests sit down at one o'clock, and from 
which they seldom rise before five. The following is 
a specimen carte of one of these gargantuan gorges 
served in December : — 

Huitres de Burnham. 

Potage Oxtail. 

Saumon de Hollande a la Russe. 

Bouchees a la Reine. 



134 'T^h^ Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

Chevreuil Diane Chasseresse. 
Becasses bardees sur Canape. 

Tete de veau en Tortue. 

Surprises GrazilJa {a sorbet). 

Pluviers dores poire au vin. 

Jambonneau au Madere. 

Petites feves de Marais a la Creme. 

Salmis de Caneton Sauvage. 

Faisan de Boheme. 

Salade de Saison. 

Dinde trufFee Mayonnaise. 

Glace Vanillee. 

Fruits. Gateaux. Dessert. 

All this for five francs ! with a bottle of burgundy 
to wash it down, at any price from a crown to a 
pound. One thing may safely be said about the 
Belgian restaurants ; a bottle of good, sound burgundy 
can almost always be bought in both town and 
country. It is often told that the best burgundy 
in the world is to be found in Belgian cellars. 
Whether this is a reputation maintained in honour 
of the Dukes of Burgundy who once ruled the land, 
or whether the good quality of the wine is due to 
the peculiar sandy soil, which permits of an unvarying 
temperature in the cellars, I will leave others to deter- 
mine, but the fact remains that from a Beaujolais at 
2 francs 50 centimes to a Richebourg at 20 francs, 
the burgundy offered to the traveller in Belgium is 
generally unimpeachable. Ghent is another town 
famous for its big feasts. The market dinner on 
Friday at the Hotel de la Poste, which has just been 
rebuilt, is often quoted as a marvellous " spread," but 

,x x^ . «T. ^ the best restaurant in Ghent is uil- 
Mottezs, Ghent 1 1 n tv/t , , a 

doubtedly Mottez s, on the Avenue 

Place d'Armes. This is an old-fashioned place, with 

no appearance of a restaurant outside, and a stranger 

would easily pass it by. Here one dines both a la carte 



''Belgian 'Towns 135 

and at table d'^hote ; the table cChote is well worth trying, 
though some of the dishes can be safely passed over. 
The wines at Mottez's are very good, and some special 
old Flemish beer in bottles should be asked for. A 
great local dish is Hochepot Gantois^ a mixture of 
pork, sausages, and vegetables which only the very 
hungry or the very daring should experiment upon 
at a strange place. Flemish cooking as a rule is fat 
and porky, and there is a dish often seen on the carte 
called Choesels a la Bruxelloise^ which is considered a 
delicacy by the natives, and it is supposed to be a hash 
cooked in sherry or marsala ; it is, however, a dish of 
mystery. A plat always to be found in Belgium 
(especially in the Flanders district) is JVaterzoei cie 
Poulet^ a chicken broth served with the fowl. This 
is usually very safe, and any one going to Mottez's 
at Ghent should try it there. The Rocher de 
Cancale is also a restaurant at Ghent that can be 
recommended. It is at the corner of the street 
leading to the Place d'Armes, on the way from the 
station. Carbonades Flamandes is another Flemish dish, 
which, if well prepared at a reputable establishment, 
can be eaten without fear. This is beef-steak stewed 
in " faro," an acid Flemish beer, and served with a 
rich brown sauce. Salade de Princesses Liegeoises is a 
salad made with scarlet runners mixed with little 
pieces of fried bacon. The bacon takes the place 
of oil, while the vinegar should be used with rather 
a heavy hand. When other salads are scarce, this 
makes an excellent dish. Of all the Belgian plats^ 
however, the Belgians place foremost Grives a la 
Namuroise^ which of course are only to be obtained 
in the autumn. I have said that the Belgian is a 
bird-eater, and throughout the country all kinds of 
birds — even, I regret to say, song-birds — are pressed 
into service for the table. A stranger visiting the 
Ardennes will be struck by the sad silence of the 



136 The Goiirmef s Guide to Bur ope 

woods, which is caused by the wholesale destruction 
of the birds. How the supply is kept up it is 
difficult to say, but no Belgian dinner is considered 
complete without a bird of some sort, and when grives 
are in season, thousands must be served daily. A 
grhe proper is a thrush, but blackbirds and starlings 
often find their way to the casserole under the name of 
a grive. They are cooked with the trail, in which 
mountain-ash berries are often found. These give 
the bird a peculiar and rather bitter flavour, but the 
berry mostly used in the cooking is that of the juni- 
per plant, which grows very plentifully in Belgium. 
When grives go out of season, we have woodcock and 
snipe ; and there are several houses which make a 
specialty of Becasses a la fine Champagne. At Mons 
and at Liege, and I think at Charleroi also, there is 
every year a woodcock feast, just as there is an oyster 
feast at Colchester. At these festivities a little wax 
candle is placed on the table beside each guest, so 
that he can take the head of his hecasse and frizzle it 
in the flame before he attacks its brains. Then we 
have plovers and larks in any quantity, but I would 
not like to vouch for what are often served as alouettes 
and mauviettes. The one bird that we never get in 
Belgium is grouse, unless it is brought over specially 
from England or Scotland. It has always been found 
impossible to rear grouse in the country. In the 
neighbourhood of Spa there are great stretches of 
moorlands reaching almost to the German frontier, 
covered with heather, which look as if they would be 
the ideal home of the grouse. Here M. Barry Herr- 
feldt, formerly of the Chateau du Marteau at Spa, a 
real good sportsman, tried his utmost to rear grouse ; 
first he laid down thousands' of eggs and set them 
under partridges, but this proved a failure ; then he 
introduced young birds, but they all died off, and I 
think he has now given up the attempt in despair. 



Belgian Toivns 137 

Whilst speaking of partridges, I ought to mention 
that there is no partridge in the world so plump and 
sweet as one shot in the neighbourhood of Louvain, 
where they feed on the beetroot cultivated for the 
sugar factories. At a restaurant Coq de bruyere is often 
served as grouse, but this is a blackcock. In many 
of the Belgian towns out of the beaten track good 
food can be obtained at tavernes and cafes, but as a 
rule it is best to avoid those in the vicinity of railway 
stations. It is well to go near the market-places. 
On the Grand' Place at Ypres, a wonderful old town 
well worth a visit, there is an excellent La Chatellenie, 
restaurant attached to the Hotel de la Ypres 
Chatellenie. The table cVhote at 2 fr. 50 c. is remark- 
able value for the money. Any one dining here should 
ask to see the club rooms and pictures upstairs. There 
is a good garage for automobiles here. At Thielt, 
another small town in Western Flanders, I have also 
eaten well for a reasonable price at the little Hotel de 
I'Esperance on the market-place, opposite the belfry, 
that has a very silvery carillon. The wines here — 
Moselles and clarets especially — are of good vintage 
years and well cellared. One last note : outside the 
capital and at all but the best restaurants the Flemish 
custom is to 'Mine" in the middle of the day and 
"sup" at about seven. 

.Antwerp 

It is strange that a big city and seaport like 
Antwerp, which is a favourite stopping-place of 
English and American visitors to the Continent, 
should have so few good restaurants. None of the 
establishments near the quays can be classed as 
even third-rate, and it is in the neighbourhood of 
the Bourse that the best eating-houses will be found. 
At the Rocher de Cancale, usually called Colon's 



ijB T'be Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

(after the late proprietor), the cooking and the wines 

are everything that can be desired, and the prices are 

by no means high. This restaurant is 
IiocIi6r d.6 . 

Cancale, situated at the corner of the Place de 

i9Ruedes Meir and the Rue des Douze Mois, a 

little street leading down to the Bourse. 
Antwerp has a grill-room that can be highly recom- 
mended in the Criterium, situated on the Avenue 
de Keyser, near the Central Railway Station. The 
Criterium Criterium is also known as Keller's, 

Avenue de and has a large English clientele. Be- 

Keyser sides chops and steaks from the grill, 

there are other viands, and a table d'hote dinner is 
supplied in the middle of the day at 2 francs 50 
centimes. The food is of the best, while a special 
feature is made of English beers and other drinks 
usually sought after by the Briton travelling abroad. 
The restaurant at the Zoological Gardens is well 
managed and much frequented, and the Cafe Weber, 
a big establishment on the Avenue de Keyser, is also 
highly spoken of. At the Hotel St. Antoine on the 
Place Verte there is a grill room for outside visitors, 
but I have found it rather dear. 



Spa 

Once upon a time the pretty little town of Spa, 
situated among the green hills of the Belgian Ardennes, 
was one of the most fashionable and most frequented 
watering-places in Europe, but a succession of anti- 
gambling regulations reduced its attractions. Although 
the glories of the place have departed, its natural 
beauties remain. The Casino has been rebuilt, and 
both baccarat and peths chevaux were, or are, played 
there ; but the regulations as to gaming sometimes 
seem in abeyance in Belgium, sometimes they are 
severely enforced, and it is impossible to predict 



'Belgian 'Towns 139 

whether six months hence baccarat will be in full 
swing at the Club Prive, or whether chctnin dc fer 
will be played under the rose, with the constant 
fear in the minds of the punters that a police raid 
may take place at any moment. The authorities at 
Spa quite realise that more people used to come to 
Spa to try their luck at the tables than to drink the 
iron-waters at the Pouhon and other springs, or to 
take the effervescing baths and douches. Of the Spa 
restaurants as they exist to-day, there is little to be 
said and less to be praised. To tell the truth, there is 
not a really first-class restaurant in the place. To 
nearly all the springs, which are located in easy 
proximity to the town, so-called restaurants are 
attached, but the patronage being intermittent and 
uncertain, the choice of plats is limited, and the 
service is slow and bad. The Sauveniere Spring is 
nearest to the town, but the drive there is all uphill, 
monotonous, and dusty. The Geronstere is more 
prettily situated, and is a favourite resort for luncheon 
during the summer season ; but unless the meal is 
specially ordered beforehand, the visitor will, as a 
rule, have to be content with eggs, beef-steaks, or 
cutlets. The Tonnelet is situated on the roadside, 
and the restaurant there is often uncomfortable and 
dusty. Those who make the Tours des Fontaines 
will be best advised to stop for lunch at the Source de 
Barisart, which is situated in a most source de 
picturesque part of the woods, 160 feet Barisart 
above the town, from which it is distant about a mile. 
The much-writtenipf Promenade de Meyerbeer is 
close at hand, and a stroll beneath the trees before or 
after lunch will be enjoyed, for the surroundings are 
charming and romantic. If previous notice for a 
meal can be given, so much the better ; there is pro- 
bably a telephone from the town. In trout time this 
fish should be included, as it is caught plentifully in 



140 T^he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

the district, and is, as a rule, fresh and good. As 
before said, there is no good restaurant in the town, — 
excepting of course those in connection with the 
principal hotels, where a table d^hote is usually served 
at mid-day and in the evening. 

Perhaps the best of the restaurants is the grill-room 
and Brasserie combined, in the ground-floor of the 
Brasserie- rebuilt Casino, now called the Kurhaus. 

Restaurant, Neri of Nice is the restaurateur, and 

Kurhaus ^^^ ^^^^ lunch quite well there for 

about 9 francs, and dine for about 12. 

The gourmet can safely be advised to eat a meal at 
the Grand Hotel de I'Europe, where M. Henrard 
Hotel de Richard always paid great attention to 

I'Europe his cuisine. Although he no longer 

personally controls the management of L'Europe, the 
hotel is still under the direction of his family, and 
retains its high reputation. The following is a menu 
of a 7-franc table d^hote dinner served in September. 
It has not been specially selected, and is therefore a 
fair specimen : — 

Bisque d'Ecrevisses. 
Brunoise a la Royale. 
Truites Meuniere. 
Filet de Boeuf garni Beaulieu. 

Ris de veau Princesse. 
Petits pois a la Fran^aise. 
Pei^reaux rotis sur Canapes. 
' Glace Vanille. 

Gaufrettes. 
Corbeille de Fruits. 

The wines here are good, the Moselle and Rhine 
wines being especially cheap. Other hotels with 
restaurants attached that may be mentioned are the 
Britannique (with a fine garden in which meals are 
served), the Bellevue, the Flandre, and the Rosette. 



Belgian 'Towns 141 

The last-mentioned is a small hotel attached to the 
Palace of the late Queen of the Belgians, and is run by 
her Majesty's chef. The meals for the Palace were 
always cooked at the hotel, and the restaurant, though 
simply appointed, has latterly been excellent in its 
way. Strangers feeding there should try and secure 
a table on the little glass-covered terrace in front of 
the hotel. Mention might also be made of a couple 
of small restaurants that in the past were mostly 
supported by the professional players at the tables. 
One in a side street near the Casino, kept by a 
Frenchman, has a reputation for its cheap French 
wines ; and the Macon, at a franc the bottle, is 
indeed drinkable. At the other, the Limbourg, the 
cooking is German in character and flavour. Both 
places may be recommended as wholesome and honest 
to people who want to "get through" on about 10 
francs a dav. There is no more to be said. 

OSTENDE 

Ostende, or as we call it Ostend, is not renowned 
for the cheapness of its food, and the great majority of 
its well-to-do visitors make a bargain with one of the 
hotels to take them en pension^ and are content with 
the table d'hote dinner, which looks quite showy on the 
menu card, though it does not waken that extra sense 
of appreciation which every true gourmet possesses. 

But Ostende is by no means a city of Dead Sea 
apples, though he who would dine well there amidst 
refined surroundings must have a long purse. The 
same syndicate, or company, which owns the Hotel 
de Paris at Monte Carlo has bought the ^he Royal 
big Palace Hotel, which with its Sports Palace Hotel, 
Club and its theatre and its great stretch "^^^ ^^^^® 
of garden, stands between the race-course and the sea, 
and the manager brings there during the season his 



142 'The Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

cooks and maitres cThotel from the Cafe de Paris at 
Monte Carlo, and, I should also add, his prices. A stock 
of that old brandy which all connoisseurs know has also 
been laid down. The restaurant, with a stained-glass 
roof, has windows which look across the walk on the 
sea wall to thesea, and it is a remarkably pleasant place 
in which to lunch or dine or take tea ; but the prices 
are Monte Carlo prices. Let me give a personal ex- 
perience. I went there by myself to lunch. The 
carte du jour presented to the clients has no prices on 
it, which much exercised the mind of a veritable John 
Bull who was sitting at the next table to me and who 
asked, " How much is that ? " concerning the dishes, 
to which question he received soothing but quite non- 
committal replies. I ordered ^friture ot langues cTavocat^ 
the little flat-fish that somewhat resemble pointed 
tongues ; and as the shooting season had just com- 
menced, the maitre (^7w/^/ recommended two quails and 
2.pilafo^ rice, which seemed to me to be an admirable 
suggestion. I ordered half a bottle of Chateau Car- 
bonieux and half a bottle of one of the mineral waters. 
After my quails — little birds with brown firm flesh, 
differing much in this from the fattened - up, im- 
ported quail of the South which we eat in London — I 
thought I would like a pear ; and the waiter brought 
me, packed in cotton wool, a monster pear and two 
apples with little landscapes traced with a graver upon 
their rosy cheeks. I know those pears and apples of 
old. If one happens to be giving dinner to a lady in 
whose company one does not wish to appear mean, 
and the waiter brings a box of those marvellous pears 
and apples to her, one makes a swift mental calculation 
of all the money one has in one's pockets at the same 
time that one wishes that the waiter might suddenly 
be struck with apoplexy. In the present case, being 
alone, I grinned at the waiter and told him to bring 
me something cheap. He returned with some peaches* 



Belgian Towns 143 

They also were packed in cotton wool, and the bigger 
ones had a little collar and bow of black and gold 
ribbon just like pet kittens. I imitated my John Bull 
neighbour and asked the price. The waiter thought 
that the big peaches were eight francs apiece and the 
smaller ones five francs. " I will bring you some 
greengages, they are very cheap," said the waiter, who 
did not require to be told that I would be no peach- 
eater. Now I happened to know that greengages were 
very cheap that day. I had been round the market, 
and knew that they were being sold at 30 centimes a 
kilo at the stalls, and were 35 and 40 centimes a kilo in 
the shops, just as I also knew that at Jean Bogaert's 
shop in the Grand Place the quail were priced at 
I franc each. The waiter brought me a big box of 
greengages, and I took a handful, five in all. My bill 
came to 20 francs 75 centimes, and I found that I 
had been charged half a franc each for the greengages. 
The cooking at the Palace and the service are admir- 
able, for the major-domo always gives his guests of the 
best ; but the man who dines or breakfasts there must 
expect to pay gambler's prices. My heart went out 
to one of my friends who, when I laughingly told him 
of the cheap greengages, informed me that one day at 
the races his wife thought she would like to take tea 
at the Palace, and invited half-a-dozen other ladies. 
He was detained in the paddock, and when he joined 
the tea party found that not content with tea and 
cakes the ladies had eaten the contents of three of the 
boxes of specimen fruits. A dinner party would have 
cost him less than that afternoon tea. 

The Plage Hotel has always had a reputation for 
good cooking, and its restaurant used to be a place 
where a good but expensive a la carte ^-^^ pj 
meal was to be obtained. In the Hotel, The 
autumn of 1907 the hotel changed '^^S^^ 
hands, being sold by the Wagons Lits Company to 



144 '^^'^^ Gourmets Guide to Europe 

the proprietor of the Splendid and Continental Hotels. 
The restaurant has now been divided into two parts 
by an imaginary line. Those careful guests who are 
en pension and eat the lunch and dinner of the day, 
quite good meals, are bowed to the left, the people who 
dine and breakfast a la carte are told to walk straight 
on to the tables in the centre and on the right. 

The Restaurant of the Kurhaus, as the Casino 
is called, possesses an excellent cook, and its prices 
THe Restaurant are high. The restaurant is in the 
of the Kurhaus, buildmg, and arches in the wall of the 
The Digue great concert hall connect it with the 

dining-room. Outside these arches, and actually in 
the concert room, the restaurant has a little roped-in 
enclosure, and it is quite chic to secure a table in this 
space and dine there on the nights when any celebrity 
is singing. You start your dinner at 8.30, the hour 
of the commencement of the concert ; you talk loudly 
and clatter knives and forks during all the orchestral 
items 5 and you become silent and allow the entree to 
get cold while Caruso, or Bonci, or Note sings. 

The Restaurant du Helder, attached to the big 

Brasserie of that name on the Boulevard van Iseghem, 

is a moderate-sized white restaurant. 
Restaurant t.. u u-^ '^ ^ u-^ u • 

du Helder, J-t has white etageres^ white chairs. 

Boulevard van and is much after the Parisian model. 

s-g em One has to note that the linen is not 

of the finest make, that the glass is not of the thinnest, 

that the imitation flowers on the table with electric 

lights concealed in them are just a little gaudy, to 

appreciate its provincialism. Its prices are about 

Parisian prices, those that one expects to pay at 

Durand's or La Rue's or Henri's, and both the 

cooking and service are good. The habitues of the 

restaurant tell me that no one is ever " rushed " there 

into ordering a longer and more expensive dinner 

than he requires, and that where two portions will 



Belgian T'owns 145 

serve for three people, a suggestion is always made 
by the maitre d^hbtel that two will suffice. All of 
which I am glad to record. Most of the items on the 
bill of fare seemed to range between 2 and 3 francs, 
and if I had not been tempted by an 8-franc partridge 
my bill for a solitary dinner would have been under 20 
francs. As an indication of the prices of the Helder, this 
was my dinner : A slice of Cantaloup melon, a slice 
of brill with white wine sauce, a partridge and salad 
Cceurs de Romaine^ a bit of Camembert cheese, and 
a pear. A small bottle of Sauterne and a small bottle 
of Vichy water, a cup of coffee, and a glass of the 
" fine " of the house, Courvoisier at a franc a glass, 
and very good at the price. My bill came to 24 francs 
75 centimes, the melon and the partridge being the 
expensive items in it. 

The Cafe de Paris of Brussels has opened a branch 
in Ostende. 

The man who wishes to keep his dinner bill 
below 10 francs or even below 5 iieed not fare 
ill at Ostende. In the Grand Place "Au Gourmet, " 
is the charcutier's shop of M. Jean Grand Place 
Bogaerts, who is a " Fournisseur du Roi," but who 
modestly describes himself as Traiteur. In his shop 
window during the shooting season is always some 
choice game, and relays of fresh trout are sent him 
daily. On the first floor above the shop is a little 
restaurant which bears the title "Au Gourmet." It 
is a very unpretending little place, the knives are 
black-handled and the napery is coarse, but it is 
perfectly clean. On the mirrors are wafered the 
names of the plats du jour^ the cost of which seem 
generally to be i franc 50 centimes ; a modest bill 
of fare conveys fuller information ; a little girl sits 
at the caisse ; and an elderly waiter with a blue 
black moustache and embroidered shirt and gloomy 
views concerning life takes one's orders. Little 



146 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

things show that the service is good. I ordered 
some shrimps as hors (Tceuvre^ and a finger glass was 
brought me after I had eaten them, and a large goblet 
was given me to wash the grapes of my dessert if I 
wished to. These are quite small matters, but they 
showed that the waiter, who looked like an Italian 
Count who had seen better days, knew his business. 
The prices charged for the game dishes showed me 
that one could get any of the birds shown in the shop 
downstairs at their sale price plus 50 centimes for 
cooking. Shrimps, a baby sole a la meunierey a roast 
snipe on toast with water-cress, cream cheese, a 
bunch of black grapes, a pint of Cerons, and a small 
bottle of Louise Marie, the best known of Belgian 
mineral waters, and my bill came to 6 francs 65 
centimes. Partridges I noticed were priced on the 
bill of fare at 4 francs 50 centimes, quail at i franc 
50 centimes. The wine list, which is short, contains 
some good names. Volney Santenoy at lO francs a 
bottle, and Chevalier Montrachet at 6 francs a bottle, 
should tempt connoisseurs. My snipe was overdone, 
but then I omitted to send word to the cook that I 
was an Englishman and liked my snipe but half 
roasted, a wise precaution anywhere on the Con- 
tinent for the man who likes his snipe to have "just 
flown through the kitchen," as they say in Ireland. 

There are Tavernesand Brasseries in number on the 
Boulevard van Iseghem, and in the Rue de la Chapelle, 
which runs across the town from the Digue to the 
harbour. On the Rampe de Flandre, which is the 
commencement on the seaside of the big street, is the 
Taverne St. Jean, a cheap and not particularly inviting 
The Taverne St establishment, which is kept by an ex- 
Jean, Rampe de head-waiter from Madame Re's fish 
Flandre restaurant at Monte Carlo, and he has 

brought some of the good traditions of that establish- 
ment with him to the borders of the North Sea. 



'Belgian T'owns 147 

The Taverne St. Denis is a little eating-house in 
the main street which is quite clean The Taverne St. 
in its appointments, and where I have Denis, Rue de 
obtained a quite satisfactory fillet, and ^^ Chapelle 
washed it down with some excellent beer from Bruges. 

The tea-rooms of Ostende are Marchal's, on the 
Boulevard van Iseghem. They and the patissier's 
shop form the corner of the block Marchal's 
which the new theatre occupies. The Boulevard van 
rooms, airy and marble-walled, are ^^®&^®^ 
quite first-class ; the waiters are in liveries which 
fit them ; and a Roumanian gipsy band plays. The 
foyer of the theatre is immediately above these rooms, 
and steps from the theatre hall lead into them. They 
serve as the theatre cafe, and the Englishman who 
wants something stronger than tea between the acts 
can be sure that his " peg " will be compounded of 
good materials. 

Maxim's, like its Paris namesake, Maxim's 
becomes merry about midnight, and Boulevard van 
remains open till the small hours. Iseghem 

The Clubs of Ostende 

The Club Prive of the Kurhaus is, at intervals be- 
tween raids and other disagreeable events, a baccarat 

club, and there is a roulette table which 

J • ^ • u r ^u Club Prive 

IS m use durmg certam hours or the 

day. It was during the season of 1910 a branch of 

the Cercle Litteraire in the town, but that did not 

prevent the police and magistrate from Ghent making 

a descent upon it. Forty-eight hours generally elapse 

between application being made and the acceptance 

of a candidate who belongs tp a recognised London 

club. It is wise to send in an application to the 

secretary before arriving at Ostende, Entrance fee 

is I louis. 



148 I' he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

The Sports Club at the Palace Hotel is also a club 
where chemin de fer is generally played. The com- 
mittee not infrequently exercise their 
The Sports Club • i ^ ^ 1 \ ij u u 

right to keep out would-be members 

who are not in their opinion sufficiently vouched for. 
The entrance fee is 2J louis. 

There are in the square of the town the Literary 
Club and the Club St. Cecile, but these are for the 
inhabitants of Ostende more than for the strangers 
within its gates. 

AFTER DINNER 

The theatre in the Rue de Flandre and the Boule- 
vard van Iseghem is excellently managed, companies 
playing comedy, opera, and operetta there, Brussels 
and Spa sending operatic stars, and travelling com- 
panies playing short seasons. At the Scala, the variety 
theatre on the Rampe du Cerf, a revue is produced 
early in the season, and runs till Ostende empties. 
The daily evening concerts at the Kursaal have a 
world-wide fame. The orchestra is formed of 120 
performers, and all the greatest operatic stars of the 
world sing there as soloists. After the theatre and, 
the concert the clubs fill up, and the lights are not 
out at daybreak. 

Bruges 

I had always looked upon Bruges as the sleepiest 
city in the world ; and the most peaceful spot in 
Bruges I always considered to be under the apple-tree 

Hotel de Flandre '" ^^^ g^''^^" ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ Flandre, 
where the perfect occupation is to drink 
a bottle with a friend of the '67 Chambertin and to 
listen to the chimes ringing in the old brown belfry. 
The last occasion on which I was at Bruges was 
during the Golden Fleece Exhibition. I lunched at 



Belgian Towns 149 

the Hotel de Flandre, and found it crowded by Eng- 
lish people who had come from Ostende and Brussels 
to see the exhibition. The dining-room has been 
enlarged and glitters with new decoration, and the 
extension has eaten up a part of the garden, though 
the apple-tree and the wonderful bit of statuary still 
remain. The wine list still contains an admirable 
selection of burgundies — the pint of Volnay which 
I drank was exactly in the right condition ; and peep- 
ing into the kitchen, I found that it is as clean and 
as perfectly kept as of yore. The cooking at the 
Hotel de Flandre 1 have never found noticeably good, 
but it is quite sufficiently good not to interfere with 
one's enjoyment of the burgundy ; and now that 
the scurry of an exhibition is no longer a disturbing 
element, I say to the good gourmet, go and sit under 
the apple-tree in the Flandre garden and study good 
burgundy under exceptionally pleasant conditions. 

Otto, who used to be head waiter at the Hotel de 
Flandre, is now proprietor of the Hotel de Londres 
in the Station Square, and he can cook .pj^g Hotel de 
a sole au grat'in as well as any man Londres, Station 
can. In the visitors' book of the hotel ^^^^^^ 
are recorded the names of some of the patrons of the 
prize ring who went over to Bruges to see the fight 
between Smith and Kilrain. It is a puzzle to dis- 
cover who the proprietor thought some of the noble 
lords were when he tried to write their names. 

Heyst and Blankenberghe 

Time was, not so many years ago, when at both 
these towns, northwards along the coast from Ostende, 
there used to be inns much patronised by the Brussels 
tradespeople who come in numbers to both these 
seaside resorts during the bathing season. The guests 
took their seats at long tables, each man and woman 



150 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

with knife, fork, spoon, a yard of bread, and a 
glass before him or her. The serving maids then 
placed a great pile of plates, ten or twelve or even 
sixteen, in front of every diner. On the first occa- 
sion that I lunched at Heyst and this occurred, a 
horrible fear came upon me that I was going to be 
asked to carve some dish, but a glance round the 
table reassured me. The number of plates indicated 
the number of courses of the feast. All these old 
inns seem now to have vanished, and their places 
have been taken by tall modern hotels. I have 
lunched quite satisfactorily both at the restaurants of 
the Hotel des Bains and the Hotel du Kursaal at 
Blankenberghe, but they were modern moderate meals 
eaten amidst twentieth-century surroundings. 

NiEUPORT 

My experiences of the luncheons at the Esperance 
and Pelican at Nieuport, the old town which lies away 
south of Ostende, eleven miles down the coast, are that 
they are satisfying though not delicate meals. The 
gourmet will find, however, that the quaintness of the 
old town makes amends for its primitive cuisine. 



IV 

BRUSSELS 

The Restaurants of Brussels— The Ckibs — "After Dinner." 

Brussels must have been a gayer city than the 
Brussels of to-day when it earned the title of "a 
little Paris." There is at the present time very little 
indeed of Paris about the Belgian capital, and, in the 
matter of restaurants, there is a marked contrast 
betw^een the two cities. Here the latter-day Lucullus 
will have to seek in queer nooks and out-of-the-way 
corners to discover the best kitchens and the cellars 
where the wines are of the finest criis. The aris- 
tocracy of Belgium mostly dines en famille^ and the 
restaurants that cater for the middle classes are the 
most patronised. There are, however, several estab- 
lishments which provide for more refined tastes, but 
they will not be found upon the big boulevards or 
the main thoroughfares. Four of the best restaurants 
in Brussels are in two narrow little streets, and their 
exteriors resemble old-fashioned London coffee-houses, 
rather than resorts of fashion. Brussels is particularly 
destitute of smart rooms where one can sup in gay 
company "after the opera is over." Until the Savoy 
was opened, we had, in fact, nothing beyond the 
ordinary restaurant with its little cabinets particuliers. 
When Mr. Arthur Collins of Drury Lane was. in 
Brussels a few years ago, he asked me to take him 

151 



152 ^he Gourmets Guide to Europe 

one evening, after leaving the Scala, to the local 
Romano's. "We haven't such a place," I explained, 
"but vv^e can go to the Helder." "I dined there 
this evening," said A. C. ; " it was a very good dinner, 
but deadly dull ; show me something livelier." We 
resolved to try the Filet de Sole, thinking, as it was 
close to the Palais d'Ete, we were certain to meet 
some people there, but the place was empty. The 
fact is, Brussels at that time had little night-life 
beyond the taverns and bars of low character, but we 
now have three high-class supper-rooms in the Cafe 
de Paris, the Savoy, and the Grand Hotel Grill-room, 
which has a separate entrance in the Rue Gretry. If 
a stranger came to Brussels, and wanted to be shown 
the best restaurants, I should start him with lunch at 
the Savoy, dine him at the Helder or Filet de Bceuf, 
and finish him off with supper at the Cafe de Paris. 
The grill at the Savoy is excellent, and by no means 
dear, i franc 75 centimes is charged for a chop or 
steak, including pommes de terre well served. The hors, 
(Tceuvre are a specialty at luncheon. There is great 
variety, and the pickled shrimps would tickle the most 
jaded appetite. 

The Savoy is situated in the Rue de I'Eveque, by 
the side of the General Post Office. It was originally 
Savoy, Rue de a kind of offshoot from the American 
I'EvSque bar and grill-room of the Grand Hotel. 

Being done in good spirit and with good' taste, it soon 
acquired favour, and at certain times in the day the 
premises are almost too small. There are private 
dining-rooms upstairs, and a restaurant on the first 
floor has lately been added. Everything is a la carte. 
The plats fro'ids are a specialty at the Savoy, and 
are remarkably well served there. Lanson pere et fils is 
the champagne that seems to be the drink of the 
house. 

The Brussels restaurant en vogue at the moment of 



Brussels 153 

writing is the Filet de Boeuf in the Rue des Harengs ; 
but the public is fickle, and tastes Filet de Boeuf, 
are constantly changing. To-morrow ^^^ ^^^ Harengs 
another establishment may become the favourite, espe- 
cially should some patron with a circle of friends 
quarrel with the management, or take offence at an 
apparent inattention. The Filet de Bceuf is a very 
small restaurant, consisting of two salleSy one called the 
" pesage," and the other the " pelouse." There are 
only six tables in each room, and only people well 
known, or recommended by the right set, have any 
chance of reserving a table. The patrons are prin- 
cipally leaders in the worlds of sport, finance, and the 
theatre. Everything is very dear, but very good. 
The dishes are specially cooked for each customer, 
and, consequently, one has to wait a little time after 
ordering before a dinner can be served. 

The Epaule de Mouton is also in the Rue des 
Harengs, one of the little streets already alluded to, 
which run from the Grand Place to the Epaule de 
Rue Marche aux Herbes. In this street, Mouton, Rue 
which is barely five yards wide, are ^®^ Harengs 
some of the best restaurants of the town ; but the 
stranger must be particular and not enter the wrong 
door, as they are all huddled together, and the names 
of some of the establishments are very similar. There 
is, for instance, a Gigot de Mouton next door to the 
Epaule de Mouton. It is at the Epaule, however, 
where the better cuisine will be found. Behind the 
door on entering a snug corner for a tete-a-tete is to be 
found. Although the title of the establishment sug- 
gests Simpson's and a cut off the joint, the bill of fare 
will be found thoroughly French, and everything is 
well and tastefully done. In ordering, it must be re- 
membered that one plat is enough for two persons, 
and this is the rule in most Belgian restaurants. The 
burgundy at L'Epaule de Mouton is renowned. 



154 'T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

La Faille Dechiree is at a corner of another little 
street, the Rue Chair et Pain, close by the Rue des 
Fame Dechiree, Harengs. The construction and deco- 
Rue Chair et ration are quaint ; one sits in a kind of 
^^^ tunnel and eats Homard a Y Amerka'ine^ 

which is a specialty of the house. Woodcock, when 
in season, is also a dish to be ordered here. 

Le Lion d'Or is a small establishment in the Rue 
Gretry, and may safely be called the chic little 
Lion d'Or, restaurant of Brussels. The salon 

Rue Gretry downstairs is a perfect little bonhonnlere^ 

and the rooms above are extremely cosy and comfy. 
The proprietor is Adolph Letellier (of course called 
simply " Adolph " by habitues of the house), and he is 
immensely popular among the young sports of the 
town. The vrai gourmet will appreciate ies plats les 
plus raffines^ on which Adolph prides himself. Every- 
thing is a la carte^ prices being plainly marked. They 
are not cheap. The restaurant and rooms upstairs are 
open till two in the morning. 

At the new Palace Hotel on the big square in front 
of the Garde du Nord is a restaurant, managed by 
The Palace Hotel M. Neri, from Nice. The table d'hote 
Restaurant dinner at 5 francs is well and copiously 

served. The wine that is made a specialty of here is 
the Champagne Rose Napoleon, which one always 
looks for at Paillard's in Paris. At the Palace Hotel 
Restaurant a feature is rnade of afternoon teas, and at 
five o'clock it is the rendezvous of Tout-Bruxelles. 

The Regina is a restaurant at the top of the town, 
near the Porte de Namur, that was opened in 1901, 
Re'gina, Porte and it was soon found necessary to 
de Namur enlarge the premises. It was the high- 

class kitchen that made the early reputation of the 
place, but after the alterations the character of the 
clientele changed and everything became more bourgeois. 
Flemish dishes are safe to try here. The prices are 



Brussels 1 5 5 

very moderate, and the plats clu jour range from i 
franc to i franc 75 centimes, each plat being enough 
for two persons. Breakfast dishes, such as QLufs 
Gratines aux Crevettes and (Eufs Brouilles an fo'ie de 
Volaille^ are also well done here. Ecrev'isses Regina 
used to be a special dish of the house. There are 
always two special plats du soir. During the Brussels 
Exhibition of 1910 a number of new restaurants were 
opened in the neighbourhood of the Porte de Namur, 
but several of them do not look like surviving. Al- 
ready the names of some have been changed with the 
idea of attracting new clients. At the corner of 
the street leading to the Moliere Theatre from the 
Chaussee d'lxelles there is a large cafe-restaurant, 
which, after being closed for a short time, has re- 
opened under new management and is well spoken of. 
The Old Tour Tavern and the Cafe de I'Horloge are 
much frequented in this locality. 

The Helder is in the Rue de I'Ecuyer, near the 
Opera House. It is a smart restaurant, and the 
rendezvous of the monde elegant in Helder, Rue 
Brussels. No one thinks of dining de I'Ecuyer 
"there before half-past eight or nine o'clock. The 
proprietor is M. Artus fils, whom many will remember 
at the Carlton in London. He is a son of M. Artus 
of the Laiterie, and has gained a wide experience in 
high-class hotels and restaurants. He should be 
personally consulted if a special dinner is wanted. 

The Filet de Sole is in the neighbourhood of the 
markets and close by the Palais d'Ete. In the days 
when Emile Beaud was proprietor an niet de Sole, 
excellent lunch could be obtained here '^^^ Gretry 
at a fixed price, but now everything is a la carte. 
Prices are lower than at most of the first-class restau- 
rants, but the cuisine and wines are both safe and 
sound. There are private rooms upstairs. 

Wiltcher's, on the Boulevard de Waterloo, provides 



156 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

the cheapest table d'hote of a bourgeois and somewhat 
English character in Brussels. The price is only 
3 francs, and wonderful value is given for the money. 
Wiltcher's, One must not, however, expect any- 

Boulevard de thing smart in the way of service or 
Waterloo attendance, as the waiters have, as a 

rule, too many tables to look after, and the residents in 
the hotel receive the first consideration. The following 
is the menu of a dinner in January : — 

Consomme a la Reine. 

Filet de Sole a la Normande. 

Quartier d'Agneau. 

Mint Sauce a I'Anglaise. 

Epinards a la Creme. 

Poularde de Bruxelles en Cocotte, 

Croquettes de Pommes de Terre. 

Gangas du Japon a la Broche. 

Compote de Mirabelles. 

Salade de Laitue. 

Glace Arlequin. 

Biscuits de Reims. 

Cafe. 

In old Mr. Wiltcher's time a good many people 
came' from outside for the excellent food here pro- 
vided ; but now so many families reside all the year 
round in the hotel, that it is difficult to get a table for 
dinner when it is not ordered beforehand. One some- 
times meets a strange bird here. Gangas is a Japanese 
partridge. The birds migrate to Northern Africa in 
winter, and often cross to Spain, where they are caught 
in large numbers. The plumage of the gangas is very 
beautiful, and the flesh is excellent eating. The 
outarde, or little bustard, is often to be had at Wilt- 
cher's, and it is the only place at which I have eaten 
the great bustard, whose flesh is very much like a 
turkey's. White pheasant is another bird I remember 



'Brussels 1 5 7 

here. Excepting in its plumage, it in no way differs 
from the ordinary pheasant. A feature of Wiltcher's 
dinner is that no fruit is ever included in the menu, 
although coffee is always served. The story goes that 
Wiltcher the First, who took great pride in his table, 
found it almost impossible one winter to give as dessert 
anything beyond apples, oranges, pears, and nuts, there 
being no other fruit on the market. One day some 
diners rudely complained, and insisted on a change, 
expecting perhaps that pine-apple should be included 
in a dinner at this price. " You wish a change in the 
dessert, I hear," said Mr. Wiltcher, in the suave and 
courtly manner which had earned for him the sobri- 
quet of "The Duke." "Very well, to-morrow you 
shall have a change." To-morrow, there was no 
dessert upon the menu. When the reason for this 
was demanded, he simply answered: "You wanted a 
change, and you've got it. I shall give no fruit in 
future." This has become a tradition. 

Justine's is a little fish restaurant on the Quai au 
Bois'a Bruler, by the side of the fish market. It has 
distinctly a bourgeois character. It is Justine's, Quai 
not the sort of place you would choose au Bois a Brtiler 
to take a lady in her summer frocks to, but you get a 
fine fish dinner there nevertheless. There is no res- 
taurant in the world where monies a la ?narinlere are 
served in such perfection, and you can rely on every 
bit of fish supplied there being fresh. The exterior is 
unattractive, even dirty, and the service inside is some- 
what rough. On Fridays the place is always crowded, 
and there may be a difficulty about retaining a room 
upstairs, where it is best to go when you wish to be 
specially well served. In the old days it was the 
fashion to go on Fridays (or on any day for a fish 
lunch) to Le Sabot, a restaurant-estam'inet of the same 
order a little lower down on the quay, which has a 
reputation for its manner of cooking mussels j but, 



158 'The Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

since the death of old Francois, who kept it, the place 
does not appear to be so much in favour, and the tide 
of custom now flows towards Justine's. It must be 
remembered that this house is mentioned simply as a 
feature of Brussels life and not as a representative 
restaurant. 

L'Etoile, in the Rue des Harengs, is the most 
famous restaurant in Brussels. In the time of Louis 
L'Etoile, Rue des Do!, it certainly held rank as the first 
Harengs of all, both for cooking and for wine ; 

and Emile Ollivier, Dot's successor, is doing his best 
to sustain the reputation. Neatly framed and hung 
on one of the walls is still to be seen the card signed 
by the late Henry Pettitt, the dramatist, attesting to 
the fact that he had just eaten the best lunch of his 
life. This card some years later was countersigned by 
a Lord Mayor of London ; and a Lord Mayor surely 
should be a good judge of a lunch. Whatever place 
is visited in Brussels, L'Etoile should not be missed. 
The stranger should be very careful to go in at the 
right door. The wines at L'Etoile have always been 
good, and Dot used to have some burgundy that was 
world-renowned. His Jine champagne W2is also famous, 
and he had some extra special for which he used to 
charge 4 francs 50 centimes a glass. I have heard Dot 
himself tell the story how a well-known restaurateur 
from London came one evening with two friends 
to see how things were done at L'Etoile. After 
dinner they sent for Dot, to compliment him and ask 
him to join them with a liqueur, and he was to give 
them some of his best brandy. They smacked their 
lips on tasting it, and the glasses were filled a second 
time ; but the gentleman who paid the bill rather 
raised his eyebrows when he saw the item, " Liqueurs, 
36 francs." " He got even with me, however," said 
Dot, "for when I went to London I returned his 
visit. I had a good dinner (not so good, I think, as I 



'Brussels 159 

should have served), and I sent for him to join me 
with the coffee. While w^e chatted, I ordered cigars, 
repeating his words, ' Give us some of your very best. 
He did, and he charged me 7s. 6d, apiece for them." 
The rooms at L'Etoile are very small, and if any one 
wants to prove the establishment at its best, he should 
take the precaution of retaining a table and ordering 
dinner beforehand. 

The Palais Royal is a quiet little restaurant in the 
Rue Gr^try, where the cuisine is ex- paiais Royal, 
cellent. The proprietor is M. Got, Rue Gretry 
formerly chef at the Lion d'Or. This is a place that 
can be confidently recommended. 

The Cafe Riche used to be a high-class restaurant 
opposite the Helder, but it was closed a few years ago 
and the building has been converted into a big shop. 
The Cafe Riche was founded in 1865 by Gautier, the 
nephew of Bignon of Paris, who retained the pro- 
prietorship and management until his death. It had 
always had an aristocratic clientele^ and was specially 
favoured by Parisians visiting Brussels. During the 
political troubles in France the Due d'Orleans, Prince 
Victor Napoleon, and Henri Rochefort were all patrons 
of the Cafe Riche, and it required all the tact and 
savo'ir fa'ire of the proprietor to keep apart, and at the 
same time give satisfaction and pleasure to, the con- 
flicting parties. In the place of the Cafe Riche we 
have now the Cafe de Paris on the other side of the 
Opera House, at the corner of the Rue des Princes. 
This is the place to sup after the cafe de Paris, 
theatre. The director is M. Lastreto, Rue des Princes 
un meridional sympathlque. French cooking is a 
specialty, and everything is very well done. 

Duranton's, on the Avenue Louise, is now " run " 
by Monsieur Pierre Strobbe, who took Duranton's, 
a first prize at the Brussels cookery Avenue Louise 
exhibition. The restaurant is pleasantly situated, and 



i6o 'The Gourmet's Guide to Surope 

on Sunday, if you wish to go to the races in the after- 
noon, it is very convenient, being on the direct route 
to Boitsfort. There are three rooms on the ground 
floor, in which you can lunch. That on the right, a 
small narrow room, is considered to be the smartest, 
but the one on the left is the brightest. The charges 
are the same. The cooking for all the rooms is also 
the same, and it is good. Order your cab to be at 
the door half-an-hour before the first race. 

When the races are held at Groenendael, you should 
lunch or dine at the restaurant of the Chateau in the 
Chateau de woods there. You can order your 

Groenendael table by telephone. This is a very 
pleasant excursion in summer. The cooking is good, 
and the Moulin a Vent (1887) at 5 francs a bottle is 
the wine to ask for. 

The Laiterie is in the Bois de la Cambre. In 
summer-time it is indeed the most pleasant place to 
Laiterie, Bois de dine in Brussels. In the Bois there 
la Camtore are several places that supply lunches, 

dinners, and light refreshments, but the Laiterie is the 
only one that is really first-class. For seventeen years 
it has been under the management of M. Artus and 
his son. The establishment is the property of the 
town of Brussels, and is well kept up in every respect. 
Here on a Sunday as many as 1500 chairs and 400 
tables are often occupied. In the evenings the gar- 
dens are brilliantly illuminated, there being 11 00 gas 
lamps. Music is discoursed by a Tzigane orchestra, 
and the late Queen of the Belgians, who often 
used to stop her pony chaise at the Laiterie to hear 
them play, subscribed from her private purse 200 
francs every year to these musicians. Dinners are 
served at separate tables, under Japanese umbrellas, 
and the cooking is excellent ; but it is as well to 
secure a seat as near to the main building as possible, 
to overcome that objection to al-fresco meals — cold 



'Brussels 1 6 1 

dishes. The wines are good, and M. Artus has always 
the best marks of champagne in magnums. There 
must be something about the cellars of these outdoor 
places peculiarly favourable to beer, for no pale ale 
in the world can compare with that drawn at the 
bars of the Epsom grand-stand, and in Belgium there 
is no bottled Bass so fresh and palatable as that which 
one gets at the Laiterie. 

Other restaurants in Brussels worthy of mention 
are the Taverne Royale, at the corner of the Galeries 
Saint Hubert, where some real 1865 cognac can be 
had at 75 centimes the glass ; the Freres Proven^aux, 
in the Rue Royale; the Restaurant de la Monnaie (a 
large place, generally noisy, with not the most rapid 
of service) ; and Stielen's, in the Rue de I'Eveque. At 
the Taverne de Londres, in the Rue de I'Ecuyer, 
there is generally a good cut of cold roast beef with 
English pickles. A new restaurant, " Le Chapon 
Fin," has been opened in the Rue Gretry. It has 
boxes like Simpson's in the Strand. It is always 
crowded on Bourse days, and is specially patronised by 
visitors from Antwerp. 

On Wednesdays all the Brussels restaurants are 
crowded, that being Bourse day, and in more senses 
than one, " market " day, when over five thousand 
strangers, mostly men, come into the city from pro- 
vincial towns. In conclusion, I may mention that I 
have failed to discover the restaurant where George 
Osborne gave his " great dinner " to the Bareacres a 
few days before the battle of Waterloo. Thackeray 
records that as they came away from the feast. Lord 
Bareacres asked to see the bill, and " pronounced it 

a d bad dinner and d dear ! " Probably the 

place, therefore, is extinct ; for happily the double 
pronouncement cannot be applied to the dinners I 
have eaten at any of the restaurants mentioned in this 
chapter. 

* L 



1 62 T!he Gourmefs Guide to Siirope 



^ 



The Clubs 



The aristocratic club in Brussels is the Cercle du 
Pare, generally called the Cercle des Nobles. It is 

le des situated in the Avenue des Arts, and 

Nobles, the Belgian Jockey Club has lately 

Avenue des Arts x.2k.^r\ up its headquarters in an annexe. 
All members of the diplomatic services are admitted 
to the Cercle du Pare without ballot. The subscrip- 
tion is 200 francs a year. Members have the entry 
to a private stand on the Boitsfort and Groenendael 
Racecourses. 

The Cercle de I'Union is a very old-established 
Cercle del'Union, and aristocratic club at 56 Rue Royale. 
56RueRoyale It is generally called "Le Bac," but 
there is not much play there nowadays. 

The Cercle des Sports is a new club on the 
Cercle des Sports, Avenue de la Toison d'Or, and 
Avenue de la takes the place of the old Cercle des 
Toison d'Or Eleveurs. It is a club of sports- 

men, and the annual subscription is 100 francs. 

The Cercle Artistique et Litteraire in the Rue de 
Cercle Artis- ^^ \^o\^ adjoining the Pare Theatre and 
tique, Rue de Wauxhall Gardens, is a very useful 
^^ ■^^^ club for strangers. Entertainments are 

given here, and there is a good reading room. 

The Union Club, that formerly had its quarters at 
Wilteher's Hotel, has removed to premises on the 
Union Ciul), Avenue de la Toison d'Or. It is an 

Avenue de la English and American club. Years 
Toison d'Or. ^g^ there was an English club in the 

Rue de Trone to which an English billiard-table was 
left as a legacy by an old member. Round this table 
the present club was formed, but now the American 
element predominates. The subscription is small, and 
temporary members are admitted. 



Brussels 163 



AFTER DINNER 

The Theatre Royal de la Monnaie, the Opera 
House of Brussels, is just off the Boulevard Anspach, 
and faces the General Post Office. It is subsidised by 
the State and the Municipality. An excellent com- 
pany is always to be feund there during the opera 
season, and prices are much lower than in London: 
Seats can be booked even in the cheapest parts of the 
house. On Sunday afternoons popular concerts are 
often given ; and during Carnival time there are 
several Fancy Dress Balls. In summer the orchestra 
of the Opera House performs every evening in the 
Wauxhall Gardens, adjoining the Park Theatre ; 
vocal numbers by well-known artistes are included in 
the programme, and " Wauxhall " is one of the 
pleasantest places to go to after dinner. The seats 
are arranged round little tables in the open air, and 
refreshments are served. 

At the Theatre Royal du Pare high-class comedies 
are played, in which a "star" from Paris usually 
appears. 

The popular theatre at Brussels is the " Galeries," 
situated at the end of the Galeries St. Hubert, the 
covered arcade that runs from the Rue de la Madeleine 
to the Rue de I'Ecuyer. Here popular successes from 
Paris are usually played, preference being given to 
musical pieces. In the middle of the same arcade is 
the Vaudeville Theatre. It is devoted to farces, 
usually of an extravagant or risque character. Smoking 
is allowed in this theatre. It is hardly the place to 
take one's daughter or maiden aunt. At the Olympia 
Theatre, near the Bourse, there is generally a good 
entertainment. The Alhambra, an enormous build- 
ing near the Hotel Metropole, used to be one of 
Barrasford's Music Halls, but it is now a theatre 



164 T'he Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

devoted to strong melodrama and spectacular pieces. 
The " Moliere " is a cheap theatre at the top of the 
town, near the Porte de Namur. The Scala, opposite 
the Hotel Metropole, is a music hall often devoted to 
Revues ; the best Revue of the year, however, is 
always given at the Galeries. Other music halls are 
the Folies Bergere, near the Gare du Nord, and the 
Varieties. The Folies Bergere is a comfortable house 
with seats well arranged. A favourite portion of the 
hall is the " terrasse " with little tables, the charge for 
seats there being i fr. 50 c. There is also a one-franc 
promenade. In the middle of the Markets, at the 
back of the Grand Hotel, is a big building called in 
summer the " Palais d'Ete," and in winter the " Pole 
Nord." Here the summer entertainment is of a 
music-hall character, and is the best provided in the 
city. Seats can be booked, and there is also a pro- 
menade. The Palais, d'Ete is the place every one 
goes to after dinner in the summer months. When 
converted into the Pole Nord for the winter it is 
devoted to skating on real ice. Some of the fetes 
given here are well worth going to see. 



V 

HOLLAND 

The Food of the Country — The Hague Restaurants — The Hague 
Clubs — Scheveningen — Amsterdam — Rotterdam. 

The food of the middle-class Dutch consists to a 
great extent of vegetables, and it is characteristic of 
Dutch cleanliness that no lettuce is ever sent to table 
with a discoloured leaf on it, and that all vegetables 
are inspected with minute care to detect any blemish 
before they are allowed to go into the cooking-pot. 
Vegetable soups, salads, vegetable dishes and much 
fancy bread and butter and cheese, pastry, ginger- 
bread, honey cakes, and sweets form the principal 
dishes of a typical Dutch meal. A writer in Food and 
Cookery and the Catering Worlds writing on " Dutch 
Fare," thus describes a typical Dutch breakfast. " I 
made a note of what was actually on the table at 
the small and inexpensive hotel at which I put up 
in Amsterdam, and the list comprised various kinds 
of bread and rolls, including the currant rolls and 
loaves which are everywhere to be found, rye bread, 
biscuits, gingerbread (kept fresh in a small sarcophagus), 
liver sausage, salami, ham, raw ham, cold veal and 
pressed beef, all in slices, sardines, four kinds of 
cheese (the most violent restrained under a glass bell), 
marmalade, jam, butter, and a stand of boiled eggs. 
No wonder this hotel describes its breakfast as ' ex- 
tensive.' This is fairly typical of the first meal of 
the day in Holland, and one can do very well on it. 

165 



1 66 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

The coflFee is quite good, while tea, contrary to the 
behef prevalent in England, is by no means an un- 
known beverage, but is favoured by a great many 
Dutch people." The cookery of the better-class 
restaurants is purely French, a Frenchman being 
generally the chef. A feature of the cookery in the 
houses of rich merchants are the dishes of the Far 
East. Malay curries and the fruits of Java and 
Sumatra are often offered to the guest, and it is not 
at all uncommon for a merchant returning from the 
Dutch colonies to bring his Malay or Madras or 
Chinese cook home with him. The favourite dish of 
the lower classes is a sort of kedjeree, in which dried 
stockfish, rice, potatoes, butter, and anchovies all play 
their part. Sauerkraut and sausages, soused herrings 
and milk puddings also have claims to be considered 
national dishes. The hour of the mid-day meal 
throughout Holland is generally between noon and 
2 P.M., and the dinner hour between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. 



The Hague 

There are several restaurants in the Hague which 
deserve mention. One is Twee Steeden in the 
Twee Steeden, Buitenhof. This is a new building 
Buitenhof next door to the Hotel Deux Villes, or 

Twee Steeden, a comfortable hotel with a garden. 
The building of the restaurant is of buff stone with a 
good deal of carving and gilding on the front and 
balconies of wrought iron. The walls of the 
restaurant's big room on the ground floor are crushed 
strawberry in colour, and the upholstery is of greenish 
grey. There are other rooms on the first floor. The 
service is good and quiet, and the menu of a breakfast 
of the day at 1.50, selected at random, was Coquille of 
Salmon^ pigeon and peas, escaloppe de Veau^ and cheese. 



Holland 167 

Another is the Cafe Royal in the Vijverberg, an 
establishment which has its large room on the ground 
floor. The restaurant is comparatively cafe Royal, 
airy, and the cookery French, and my Vijverberg 
Dutch friends tell me " fairly good." I did not make 
experiment there mvself. 

The most distinctive of the Hague restaurants calls 
itself simply The Restaurant, though it made its name 
and its fame as Van der PijTs. It is in The Restaurant, 
the centre of the tou^n, and its three ^^ The Plaats 
windov^^s look out on to the dusty little triangle of the 
Plaats and the tower where the brothers De Witt 
were torn to pieces by the populace. The walls of 
the dining-room are panelled with blue silk, and 
during the week of my visit to the Hague, when I 
both dined and lunched several times at the restaurant, 
I was always received by a very fat maitre d'hotel^ who 
bowed in a dignified manner by letting his first chin 
drop into his second and third ones. The cuisine is 
French, and it has a cellar of excellent wines. A 
good set luncheon is served at this restaurant for the 
very moderate price of a florin and a half — it used to 
be a florin, but prices have risen in the Hague, as in 
other capitals. This is a lunch of the day, but I fear 
I have not kept a very favourable example of the 
menus. QLufs a la Gambetta^ Irish stew — made with- 
out onions and therefore rather tasteless — cold meats, 
and cheese. It is wise to order dinner a la carte^ and 
to give some hours' notice. It is advisable to secure 
a table near the windows, especially in summer. 
Some of the best wines are not put on the wine-list. 

In former years the proprietor of Van der Fiji's was 
possessed of a puritanical conscience, and would not 
allow any two people to dine alone in his private salons. 
So strictly did he adhere to his rule on this subject, 
that when a well-known man about town insisted 
on his right to dine in the petit salon alone with his 



1 68 The Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

wife, the inexorable proprietor turned him out of the 
restaurant. There was, however, another well-known 
member of Hague society who succeeded where the 
gentleman who thought that matrimony overrode all 
rules had failed. The hero of the little story had 
made a bet that, in spite of the puritanical proprietor, 
he would dine a deux with a lady in the petit salon. 
He won his bet by subtlety. He ordered a dinner 
for three, and when he and the lady arrived they 
waited a quarter of an hour for the other imaginary 
guest. Then, remarking that he was sure Mr. X. 
would not mind the dinner being begun without him, 
the host ordered the soup to be brought up ; and so, 
with constant allusions to the man that never came, 
the dinner was served, course by course, and the bet 
won before the proprietor had the least idea that a 
trick had been played upon him. 

A somewhat similar story, it will be remembered, 
is told of Delmonico's and its proprietor in the early 
history of that great New York restaurant. In the 
American story, the youth who had dined in a cabinet 
particuUer with a lady, in contravention of the rules 
of the house, had not the sense to hold his tongue 
until after he had paid his bill. When that document 
did make its appearance, some of the items were 
astonishing. " You don't expect me to pay this 
bill ? " said the staggered diner to the proprietor, 
who had made his appearance. ^' No, I do not," 
said Mr. Delmonico ; " but until you do you will not 
come into my restaurant again." 

The following are some of the dishes of which Van 
der Fiji's makes a specialty — Foule au pot Henri IV. ^ 
Sole Normande^ Cote de Bceuf a la Russe, Homards a 
F Americaine, Poularde a la Parisienne, Perdreaux au 
choux^ Omelette Siberienne^ Soujffie Palmyre^ Poires Alaska^ 
most of them standard dishes of the usual cuisine 
Fran^aisCy though the Omelette Siberienne was invented 



Holland 169 

to please a British diplomat who preferred a soup^on of 
absinthe to either rum or Ktimmel with his omelette. 
And this is a typical menu which reads as though it 
were for a French banquet : — «■ 

Huitrcs de Zelande. 

Caviar. 

Consomme Diplomate. 

Truite Saumonee a la Nantua. 

Poularde a I'Imperiale. 

Noisettes de Chevreuil a la St. Hubert. 

Delice de foie gras au Champagne. 

Becassines roties. Salade St. Clair. 

Tartelettes aux Haricots Verts. 

Mousse Antoinette. 

Sandwiches au Parmesan. 

Dessert. 

Of the hotels which contain restaurants, the Hotel 
des Indes and Hotel Vieux Doelen have a reputation 
for good cookery. The former was Hotel des indes, 
in olden times the town house of the Lang-e Voorhoot 
Barons van Brienen. In winter many people of 
Dutch society, coming to the capital from the country 
for the season, take apartments there, and during that 
period of the year the restaurant is often filled by very 
brilliant gatherings. The manager and proprietor is 
Mr. Haller. It was the hotel at which I stayed, and 
I generally dined there, finding the dinner of the day 
well cooked, and quite elaborate enough to satisfy a 
man whose tastes are simple but rather exacting. 
The restaurant can serve elaborate banquets, as the 
following menu will prove ; it was composed for a 
banquet given by Count Henri Stiirgkh : — 

Huitres. 

Consomme Bagration. 

Filets de Soles Joinville, 

Carre de Mouton Nesselrode. 



170 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Bur ope 

Parfait de foie'gras de Strasbourg. 

Fonds d'Artichauts a la Barigoule. 

Grouse rotis sur Croutons. 

Compote de Montreuil. 

Cceurs de Laitues. 

Creme au Chocolat et Vanille. 

Paillettes au Fromage. 

The Vieux Doelen, a house with a pleasant old- 
fashioned front looking on to a shady square, has a 
Vieux Doelen, beautiful old dining-room, and it is here 
Towmooiveld that every year the smartest balls in the 
capital take place, given by the Societe du Casino, 
and generally attended by their Majesties and the 
Court. 

The Hotels Paulez and Bellevue are other hotels 
to which restaurants, for which some of my corre- 
spondents have a good word, are attached. 

Hock's fish shop in the market has a room where 
excellent oyster suppers are served ; but this is not a 
Hock's, Market place to which ladies should be taken 
Pi^ce at night, for it is then patronised by 

damsels who take the courtesy title of actresses, and 
the students from Leiden. 

The clubs of the Hague are the Plaats Royal, the 
Hague Club, and the Witte Societeit. 

The latter of these is a large club with a fine 
Witte Societeit, reading - room, and is hospitably in- 
Piein clined towards such strangers as have 

the necessary introductions. Its town house is in the 
busiest part of the city. It has a terrace, and on hot 
days the chairs of the club overflow on to the square 
before it. It has a pavilion, in an enclosure which, 
being of wire netting, resembles a gigantic chicken- 
run, in Het Bosch, the park outside the city. In this 
enclosure in summer a band plays on Wednesday 
evening and Sunday afternoon. The friends of the 
members sit in the enclosure and drink tea or coffee 



Holland 1 7 1 

and eat ices. The general public walk about out- 
side. 

The Hague Club is the aristocratic club of the 
city, the members of the nobility and The Hague Club, 
the diplomatists being amongst its Vooriiout 
members. 

The Plaats Royal is small and exclusive. It has a 
semi - circular white front, the long piaats Royal, 
windows in which look out on to the Plaats 
little lake and the Plaats. 



AFTER DINNER 

During the week of sleepy summer weather I was 
at the Hague every place of amusement was closed. 
If one wished for entertainment of an evening one took 
train or tramcar out to Scheveningen ; but in winter 
the Opera House, where opera and comedy alternate, 
and the Scala, a music hall, are open. 



Scheveningen 

All the hotels and the Kurhaus at the Dutch 
Brighton are controlled by one syndicate. The 
restaurants of the hotels differ somewhat in the 
quality of their cookery ; and a Dutch friend tells 
me that when he is at Scheveningen he dines at 
the restaurant of the Palace Hotel or that of the 
Kurhaus for choice, and he has a good word to say 
for the cookery at the Hotel d'Orange. I have eaten 
a simple but well-cooked meal at the Cafe de la Plage, 
which is below the Kurhaus Terrace, and which at 
all hours of the day and evening is full, during the 
season, of merry company of all classes. 

The principal club at Scheveningen has rooms at 
the Hotel d'Orange ; and there is a small but merry 



172 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

club, the Deli, at which baccarat is played for low 
points. The golf course of nine holes is on the dunes. 
There is a club-house and links for ladies. 



AFTER DINNER 

When the season is at its height there are concerts 
at the Kurhaus, and a French company generally 
plays in the theatre. A circus and a variety theatre 
are also to be found in full swing. The Kurhaus 
Bar and cafes are the refuges for those who look on 
the small hours as reasonable bed-time. 



Amsterdam 

The Restaurant Riche is managed by a Frenchman, 
and the cuisine is French. It is necessary to order 
Cafe Riche, dinner in advance, and it is well to be 

81 Rokin particular. Under these circumstances 

an excellent dinner is obtainable. There is a cellar 
of good wine, the burgundies being especially to be 
recommended. 

The Restaurant van Laar, in the Kalverstraat, 
Van Laar, 3 has a celebrity for its fish dinners, 

Kalverstraat ^^d excellent oyster suppers are to be 
had there. 

The Amstel Room in the Hotel de I'Europe is 
Amstel Room, well spoken of, and there are scores 
2 Doelenstraat of cheap restaurants where the food is 
above the average of such places. 



AFTER DINNER 



In summer the large theatres close and the smaller 
houses are the only indoor places of amusement, for 
the larger variety theatres also close their doors. 



Holland 173 

There are concerts in the Zoological Gardens, but on 
what nights it is well to inquire, for the days vary- 
according to the season of the year. In summer a 
band plays on Friday evenings in the Voridel Park. 

Rotterdam 

The Stroomberg is the restaurant at Rotterdam 
for which people who know the town stroomberg, 2 
have a word of praise, and the restau- Westniewland 
rant on the first floor of the Hotel Hotel Coomans, 
Coomans is much frequented by the 12 Hoofdsteeg- 
Dutch themselves. 

From the Cafe-Restaurant Fritschy on the Noord- 
ereiland, the big island in mid-stream, Fritschy, 
a very fine view of the town is Noordereiland 
obtainable. 

AFTER DINNER 

The two principal theatres of Rotterdam are not 
open every night of the week, but on an average 
three evenings. There are three variety theatres, and 
the performances at these are generally good. There 
are concerts in summer on Tuesday and Friday 
evenings at the Zoological Gardens, and at the 
Officers' Club in the Park there are concerts on 
Sunday and Wednesday evenings. For these last- 
mentioned concerts it is necessary to obtain tickets 
of admission to the enclosure. 



VI 

GERMAN TOWNS 

The Cookery of the Country — The Rathskeller — Beer Cellars — 
Dresden — Munich — Nuremberg — Frankfort-on-Main — Diissel- 
dorf — The Rhine Valley — Homburg — ^^Wiesbaden — Baden- 
Baden— Ems — Aachen — Hamburg — Kiel. 

The Cookery of the Country 

A German housewife who is a good cook can do 
marvels with a goose, having half-a-dozen stuffings for 
it, and she knows many other ways of treating a hare 
than roasting it or "jugging" it. She also is cunning 
in the making of the bitter-sweet salads and purees 
which are eaten with the more tasteless kinds of meat ; 
but, unfortunately, the good German housewife does 
not as a rule control the hotel or restaurant that the 
travelling gourmet is likely to visit, but rules in her 
own comfortable home. The German Delikatessen 
which form the " snacks " a Teuton eats at any time 
to encourage his thirst, are excellent ; and the smoked 
sprats, and smoked and soused herrings, the various 
sausages and the pickled gurkins, are the best edible 
products of the Fatherland. The German meat, with 
the exception of the veal, is as a rule poor. The best 
beef and mutton in the north has generally been im- 
ported from Holland. A German housewife has soups 
in her recipe-book which we Anglo-Saxons have 
never tasted, Bier-suppe^ in which light beer is one 

174 



German l^owfjs 1 7 5 

of the constituents, is in great favour, and, reversing 
its usual place in the menu, chocolate made very 
thin is sometimes served in soup-plates. A soup 
made of the livers of calves is a popular soup, and the 
sentimental side of the German feaster is sometimes 
stirred by a "rose-leaf" soup, in which ripe rose-pips 
well boiled float on the surface of a weak consomme^ 
flavoured with pounded pips. The German is a great 
eater of fresh-water fish — pike, carp, perch, salmon, 
and trout all being found on his menus, the trout being 
generally cooked au bleu. Zander^ the "Giant Perch," 
is esteemed a great delicacy. The crab is better 
cooked and served in Germany than anywhere else in 
the world. The cooks of Berlin are celebrated for the 
crab fricassee which is always a dish at civic banquets ; 
and when crabs with parsley sauce and new potatoes 
make their appearance on the bill of fare of German 
restaurants, summer may be said to have really arrived. 
Unfortunately crabs are becoming scarce, and their 
price is mounting. Most of the crabs now eaten in 
Germany come from Russia. Another dish which 
is a sure sign of the coming of sunshine is eels and 
cucumber salad. As a vegetable cook the ruler of 
the German kitchen does not shine. Potatoes cooked 
in their jackets and potatoes cooked with brown sauce 
form an occasional change from the eternal puree. 
Asparagus heads served with a sweet sauce is a Ger- 
man dish which may be commended, but a very usual 
manner of serving asparagus in cheap restaurants is to 
cut it into inch cubes and send it to table swimming 
in butter. Pickled asparagus forms a very popular 
dish. Both the potatoes and the asparagus in Ger- 
many are excellent, until they are cooked, for they 
grow well in the sandy soil. Kompots, sweet and 
sour, are served at, to an Englishman, unexpected 
periods during the repast ; but the Briton who is 
astonished to see a German eat preserved fruits or jams 



176 T'he Gourmets Guide to Europe 

with his meats should not forget that he himself calls 
for apple sauce with a goose and currant jelly with his 
mutton. The Sauerkraut, red or white, which has 
been boiled in soup and vinegar makes its appearance 
at the close of the feast to complete the cook's victory. 
The black and brovv-n breads of Germany deserve a 
word. The Hamburger Schwarzbrot is the best bread 
in the world to eat with cheese, and the Pumpernickel 
from Westphalia forms with raw ham a sandwich 
much relished in Germany. 

The cookery in the big hotels on much-frequented 
routes in Germany is now almost universally a rather 
heavy version of the French art, with perhaps a kompot 
with the veal to give local colour. In the small hotels 
in little provincial towns the meals are served at the 
times that the middle-class German of the north usually 
eats them, and are an inferior copy of what he gets in 
his own home. I give what any enterprising traveller 
looking for the food of the country from the kitchen 
of a country inn of the better class may expect : — 

Coffee at 7 or 8 a.m. with rolls, Kaffe Brddchen^ and 
butter, and this meal he will be expected to descend 
*to the dining-room to eat. 

The Zweites Friihstuck comes at 10 a.m., at which 
the German equivalent for a sandwich, a Brodchen cut 
and buttered, with a slice of uncooked ham or cheese 
between the halves, makes its appearance, and a glass 
of beer or wine is drunk. People with work to do 
generally take a sandwich with them to their shops 
or offices. 

Dinner (Mittagessen) is announced between noon 
and 2 o'clock, and is a long meal consisting of soup, 
which in a poor inn often is the water in which the 
beef has been boiled, or perhaps Eintropfen, a soup 
thickened with biscuit flour and with egg in it, or a 
lentil soup, with Zwiebach as an accompaniment ; fish ; 
a messy entree, probably of Frankfurt sausage ; the 



German T^owns 177 

beef boiled to rags with a kompot of plums or whortle- 
berries and mashed apples, or if it is a roast brisket, 
served with a garnish of vegetables. Hasenhraten^ a 
hare roasted, is a favourite dish, and at the better-class 
inns Sauerbratteriy meat soaked in spiced vinegar before 
it is roasted, and served with potato balls and ginger- 
bread, is popular. The Roast-beef Garniert, if served at 
one of the better-class restaurants, is brought to table in 
a large dish which has compartments for apricot jam, 
plum jam, stewed cherries, cauliflower, peas, lettuce, 
rice, and spinach. Cream puddings, pancakes, or 
open tarts with cream, are the usual dishes for the 
last course. Black coffee and fruit make their appear- 
ance in company. 

Coffee is served at 4 p.m. with Kaffee Kuchen^ its 
attendant cakes, flavoured with nuts, peaches, cheese, 
or honey ; and at supper (Abendessen) one hot dish, 
generally veal, is given with a choice of cold viands 
or sausages in thin slices — Leberwurst^ Gottinger- 
wursty hot Frankfurter in pairs, Zervatelwursty of pork 
and raw ham, and black pudding or grated pumper- 
nickel and cream. 

If the above list does not warn the over-zealous 
inquirer, his indigestion be on his own head. 

In the south the cookery, though still indifferent, 
approximates more nearly to the French bourgeois 
cookery. The apple dumplings of South Germany 
are world-famous. 

A dinner party at a private house of well-to-do 
German people is always a very long feast, lasting 
at least two hours. The cookery, though good, is 
heavy and rich, and too many sauces accompany the 
meats. Many of the dishes are not carved at the 
serving table, but are brought round in order that one 
may help one's self. Just as one is struggling into 
conversation in defective German, a pike's head ob- 
trudes itself over the left shoulder, and it is necessary 

M 



178 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe ^^m 

to twist in one's seat and go through a gymnastic * 
performance to take a helping. 

Except in large cities the German gentry are not 
given to feeding at restaurants. 

A golden rule, which may be held to apply all over 
Germany, is that it is safe to take ladies wherever 
officers go in uniform. 

The Rathskeller 

In most German towns where there is a Rathhaus 
(a town hall) one finds the Rathskeller, where beers 
or wine, according to the part of the country, are the 
principal attraction, simple dishes, cutlets, steaks, cold 
meats, oysters, caviare being served more as an adjunct 
to the drink than as an orthodox meal. The most 
noted of these Rathskeller are at Bremen, Old Liibeck, 
and New Hamburg, and that at Bremen is first in im- 
portance. It is a mediaeval Gothic hall, built 1405- 
1410, andjt holds the finest stock of Rhine and Moselle 
wine in the world. The wine is kept in very old 
casks. One of the cellars is of particular interest as 
being the " Rose " one, where the magistrates used to 
sit in secret conclave, sub rosa^ beneath the great rose 
carved upon the ceiling. The German Emperor 
generally pays a visit to the Rathskeller when he visits 
Bremen. 

In the Liibeck Rathskeller, which contains many 
excellent bins of the finest Bordeaux, is the " admiral's 
table," said to be made from a plank of the ship of the 
last Admiral of Liibeck, who flourished in 1570 ; 
and even more interesting than the Rathskeller is the 
SchifFergesellschaft, with its strange motto and its 
even stranger sign. 



German T'owns 179 



Beer-Cellars 

Throughout Germany one meets in every town 
the large establishments, Bierkeller in the south, Bier- 
restaurant or Biergarten in the north, beautifully 
decorated in the " Old German " style, of the various 
beer companies, most of which are Munich ones, the 
Lowenbriiu, the Pschorrbrau, the Miinchener Hof- 
brau, and others. In South Germany the beer is 
tapped ice-cold without a carbonic apparatus. Be 
careful to close the metal top of your Schopps if you 
are drinking with German companions, for if you 
do not they have the right, by the custom of the 
country, to place their mugs on the top of the open 
one and demand another " round." If when you 
have emptied your mug, you leave it with the lid 
open, the waiter, without asking any questions, takes 
it away and refills it. 



Dresden 

Dresden is not exactly an epicure's paradise, but 
there is one restaurant which may be safely recom- 
mended as an establishment of the first order. I refer 
to the Englischer Garten, which is EngUscher Garten, 
managed by its proprietor, Herr Curt Waisenhausstrasse 
Roething. The principal entrance is through a rather 
dingy looking archway in the Waisenhausstrasse, nearly 
opposite the Victoria Salon Music Hall. The prin- 
cipal public rooms are on the ground floor, and are 
pleasant and bright in their way. 

There are also some rooms on the first floor which 
are generally used for private parties. The atmosphere 
in the winter is apt to be rather too sultry for English 
tastes, but it is perhaps less close than in most other 



i8o T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

Dresden restaurants. At the back, there is an open 
space dignified by the name of a garden, running down 
to a wide street, and here in the summer a number of 
tables are laid. 

The attendance is well above the Dresden average, 
and the waiters there invariably clean and civil. The 
German waiter at his best is not often one of the 
highest polished specimens of humanity, although some 
compensation may be found in the almost paternal 
interest he takes in habitues or customers who have 
succeeded in winning his good graces. 

In the middle of the day a huge dinner is served for 
3.50 marks on week-days, and 4 marks on Sundays. 
A deduction is made if only certain dishes on the 
bill of fare are taken. In the evening everything is 
a la carte^ and is almost as dear as the set meal in the 
middle of the day is cheap. There is a large bill of 
fare, and it comprises all the ordinary dishes, and also 
Delikatessen such as oysters, caviare, fresh truffles, 
peaches, &c., all of the best. Game, especially par- 
tridge and woodcock, is well cooked at the Englischer 
Garten. Live trout and other fresh-water fish are kept 
in a tank, and you may generally rely on finding the 
soles and turbot fresh as well. As regards price, unless 
you are an habitue or make special terms, a little 
simple dinner will average out at los. a head, exclusive 
of wine. It is well to order dinner beforehand, as the 
culinary arrangements are not very expeditious. In 
the evening the cuisine is by way of being first-class 
French art, but it just lacks the lightness of touch 
which is characteristic of the best French cookery. 

Wine is rather dear, but the higher-priced brands 
of hock, Moselle, or claret are excellent. There 
is s®me particularly good Pilsen beer in the cellars, 
which is served very highly iced. Being a wine res- 
taurant, you are not expected to drink beer except 
as a supplement to your wine. An additional charge 



German 'Towns 



i8i 



of 6d. per head is made for the set mid-day meal if 
wine is not ordered. 

The clientele is by way of being "smart" in the 
evening, and there is generally a fair sprinkling of 
officers of the two crack Saxon cavalry regiments. 
Evening clothes, or, better still, a dress jacket and a 
black tie, are advisable, but not de rigueur. 

In the middle of the day the company is more 
bourgeois ; and on Sundays, and occasionally on Satur- 
days, the place is apt to be unpleasantly crowded. In 
the evening, except on race nights, there is always 
plenty of room. 

The Belvedere is an old-established and very 

popular institution, delightfully situated on the 

Briihlsche Terrasse, with a charming t>^i„^^^^« 
» to Belvedere, 

view over the iLlbe and the town. Briihlsche 
It is essentially a place for the summer, Terrasse 
when one can take one's meals out of doors on its 
terraces and balconies. There is a beer and a wine 
restaurant, and in the former an excellent band plays ; 
but it is difficult to secure a table within earshot, as 
there is always a great crowd. The attendance is in- 
different, and the cuisine only fair and wholesome, 
though no doubt you could get a good dinner if 
you took a little trouble to order it. 

The public dinners which take place there in 
the large banqueting-hall are quite creditable pro- 
ductions, and the position, view, and fresh air all 
combine to render it a very pleasant hot-weather 
resort. 

The Stadt Gotha is another institution of the 
town. It advertises an "English dinner" in its 
wine restaurant after 5 p.m., but this gtadt Gotha 
is probably only served during the 11 Schloss- 
tourist season. Its beer restaurant is strasse 
large and very popular. Its wine restaurant is small 
and quaintly decorated. It is very popular with the 



1 82 'The Gourmet's Guide to Europe ^^ 

upper and middle classes and extremely respectable. Its^*| 
cuisine is very fair, set meals, which, especially supper 
after the play, are very inexpensive. The 1.50 mark 
midday table (Thote meal in the beer restaurant is a 
v\^onderfully good meal for the price, and the 5-mark 
set supper in the wine restaurant only errs on the side . 
of heaviness. If you order a la carte^ like most other 
places, it is rather dear. 

Tiedemann and Grahl's, in the Seestrasse, is a 
typical German Weinstube with a large clientele of 
Tiedemann habitues^ mostly men, but ladies can go 

and Grahl, there. The owners being large wine 

9 Seestrasse merchants, have some first-rate wine 

at prices averaging rather lower than the Eng- 
lischer Garten. But there is a very extensive 
list, and the quality is not altogether uniform, so if 
you can suborn a friendly waiter he will help you 
considerably. Excellent oysters and smoked salmon 
are to be had here, but the place is apt to be rather 
crowded and noisy. The appointments are of the 
simplest and most unpretentious kind. Prices, moder- 
ately high — about two-thirds those of the Englischer 
Garten. Set meals are served, but a la carte is more 
usual. The waiters, being institutions like most of 
the guests, are inclined to be a little ojBT-hand and 
familiar, and there is altogether a free and easy and 
homely tone about the place, but it is perfectly 
respectable. 

Neues Palais de Saxe, on the Neumarkt, is owned 
and managed by Herr Muller. Very fair cuisine ; 
Neues Palais good set meals; a la carte Y2.ther more 
de Saxe, Neu- expensive ; specialty made of oysters 
markt ^^^ ecrevisses^ which latter are served 

in all sorts of fascinating ways. Not at all a bad 
place for supper after the theatre, but perhaps a 
trifle dull. 

Kneist, a beer restaurant in a little street off the 



German 'T'owns 183 

Altmarkt, called the Grosse Brudergasse, is managed 
by the proprietor whose name it bears. It is much 
frequented by officers and officials. Here you find 
good plain fare served in the simplest xneist's 
of fashions. Meals are a la carte 2 Grosse Brii- 
and quite inexpensive ; cuisine purely dergasse 
German,, homely and wholesome, with excellent 
beer, especially Erlanger. The atmosphere is usually 
hot, thick, and stuffy, but the clientele does not seem 
to mind it. 

In a little back room the principal dignitaries of the 
Saxon Court, State, and Army are wont to forgather 
every morning for their Friihschoppen, — a kind of 
early, largely liquid, lunch, at which, if rumour can 
be trusted, a good deal of important business is 
informally discussed and settled. 

The Kaiserpalast and the Victoriahaus are other 
large establishments. The Bierstall in a little street 
off the Altmarkt is celebrated for its Pilsen beer ; 
but the atmosphere of the rooms is stifling. Good 
Munich beer is obtainable at the Zacherlbrau in the 
Konig Johannstrasse. 

The table cChote meals at the principal hotels are 
neither remarkably good nor remarkably indifferent. 
The Bellevue has a large verandah, overlooking the 
Elbe, which forms a pleasant dining-place in the hot 
weather. 

Dresden has a golf course of nine holes. 



AFTER DINNER 

The performances of opera at the Opera House, 
open eleven months in the year, are world-famed. 
The Schausprehaus, for comedy, is also a State under- 
taking. The Residenz Theater is for light fare, and 
there are two music halls in Waisenhausstrasse. 



1 84 I'he Gourmet's Guide to Surope 



Leipsic 

The city of books and furs is well provided with 
restaurants. Historically the most interesting of 
Auerbach's these is the Auerbach's Keller, which 

Keller, 2 Grim- was one of Goethe's haunts. when he 
maischestrasse ^^^ ^ student at Leipsic, and which he 
uses as a background in his Faust, for the scene in 
which the devil draws various wines from a wooden 
table. The cellar, which is a wine restaurant, is 
decorated with mural paintings of the legend on 
which Faust was based. As these were painted in 
the sixteenth century, and Goethe was a student in 
Leipsic in the eighteenth century, it is more than 
probable that these paintings first suggested to him 
his great work. 

A restaurant which is also in Grimmaischestrasse, 
and has a reputation for good cookery, is Steinmann's, 
Steinmann's while at the corner of this street, which 

32 Grimmaische- rivals the Market Place in the number 
strasse ^^ houses of refreshment it contains, 

is the Cafe Fran9ais, the best of the cafes of the 
town. 

Other restaurants of note are those of the New 

Theatre, which has a terrace, a plea- 
New Theatre 1-1 .u J -n 5 
sant place m hot weather ; and raege s 

in the Market Place, with a reputation for good 

cookerv. 

The Panorama, in Rossplatz, has a garden attached 
to it. The Burgkeller, in Reichsstrasse, rivals the 
Auerbach's Keller in the matter of antiquity. 

In the Rosenthal, the park outside the city, there 
are " restaurations " at the Schweitzerhaus and at 
Bonorand, and also at the Zoological Garten, which 
is close to the park, and in the Palmen-Garten. There 
is a cafe at Connewitz in the woods to the south-west 



German 'Towns 185 

of the city, and an excuse for a drive to Eutritzch 
may be found in the fact that Ghose, the beer of the 
locality, may be drunk with content in the gardens of 
the beer houses of that suburb. 



AFTER DINNER 

Leipsic is well provided with theatres and variety 
halls. The New Theatre, with its terrace overlooking 
the lake, the Old Theatre, and the Schauspielhaus, are 
all three generally open, playing opera, comedy, and 
operetta. Of the variety theatres, of which there are 
several, the Krystall Palast in Wintergartenstrasse, 
a large establishment, is the principal one. The 
Thursday evening concerts in the Gewandhaus have 
a world-wide fame. Visitors to Leipsic, if they cannot 
obtain seats for the Thursday evening concert, can 
generally find vacant places at the public rehearsal on 
Wednesday morning. 



Munich 

My recollections of dinners at Munich hotels are 
that they are all very much of a muchness, and that 
not very good. Men who know the town better 
than I do speak well of the Russischerhof, the Con- 
tinental, the Esplanade restaurant in the new Regina 
Palast Hotel, and the restaurant of the Vier Jahres- 
zeiten. Of the wine restaurants the Luitpold, which 
has a French restaurant and a cafe in its spacious 
building, is the best known in the town. Luitpold, 
A 2-mark dinner at this restaurant is a Briennerstrasse 
wonderful meal at the price. The house is at the 
end of the Maximilianplatz. Of Schleich's in the 
Briennerstrasse I hear varying opinions. 

There used to be a pleasant little restaurant on the 



i86 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

island of the Isar, but it has now become the museum 
of the Alpine Club. 

Munich is of course the headquarters of good 
German beer, and at the Hofbrauhaus in the Platzl, 
Hofbrauhaus, one of the sights of the town, as good a 
The Platzl glass of beer can be obtained as any man 

could wish for. Various kinds of beer are drunk in 
Munich at various seasons of the year. The Zacherl 
Keller has its own special brew for spring, and so has 
the Hofbrauhaus. The Hofbrauhaus is a fine typical 
specimen of a German bierhalle, very respectable and 
much frequented. After having had your first Schop- 
pen (for having once tasted you invariably want more) 
you rinse out your glass at a handy fountain before 
presenting it to be refilled. The person who takes 
your Schoppen along with several others in each hand, 
invariably, with unerring instinct, hands you back the 
same glass. As an appetiser for the beer, to which it is 
supposed to give an additional zest, the attendants place 
a large radish about the size of an apple in a sort 
of turnip-cutting machine, which ejects it in thin 
rings ; it is then washed and put into a saucer with 
a little salt and water, and eaten without any other 
accompaniment than the beer. It may be an acquired 
taste, but it appears to be very popular. 

The large breweries outside the gates, each with its 
restaurant, are worth a visit from any one whom beer 
interests. At the Oktober Fest all the breweries have 
great tents on the Fest ground. 

AFTER DINNER 

At the Prinz Regenten Theater performances of 
Wagner's operas are given in August and September, 
after the manner of Bayreuth. At the Hof Theater 
operas and serious plays are performed, and lighter fare 
is to be found in the Gartnerplatz Theater. There 



German Towns 187 

is a summer theatre in the Park, and the gravity of 
the Prinz Regenten is balanced by four variety theatres. 

Nuremberg 

The most interesting of the hosteh'ies in Nuremberg, 
the town of good beer and little sausages, are the houses 
where the fare consists almost entirely of sausages, 
sauerkraut, and beer. The most celebrated of these 
is the Bratwurstglocklein, a curious Bratwurst- 
little tavern stuck like a wafer on to g-ldcklein, 
the back of the Moritzcapelle. It ctiockengasse 
looks more like a doll's house than a real building. 
It has a brown tiled roof, in which are many little 
windows with green and white shutters. Some of 
the tables and chairs seem to have overflowed from 
inside, and are set out on the cobble stones before its 
doors. Little oleander trees in pots give a pleasant 
touch of cool colour to the space before the building. 
The o:lass of the windows is that 2;lass which resembles 
the bottom of bottles. The interior is panelled with 
dark wood, which is almost covered by old prints and 
old pictures, all having some reference to the place or 
to the celebrities who used to be customers. The 
drinking-mugs of these celebrities, and fine old pewter 
tankards hung upside down, also form part of the 
decorations of this miniature eating house. The 
entrance to the eating room of the inn is through the 
kitchen, and the company sit at narrow tables eating 
little sausages, the pleasant smell of which comes 
pouring out through the open windows. In the tiny 
kitchen a buxom cook and her assistants cook pan 
after pan of the thoroughly German delicacy. The 
sausages are cooked all day long, and are made twice 
a day so as to ensure freshness. The sausage which 
is eaten in the evening had not come into existence 
before mid-day. The bell from which this "Httle 



1 88 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

bell of the Roast Sausage " takes its name is hung on 
a wrought iron bracket on the stone buttress jutting 
from the chapel which forms one end of the diminutive 
tavern. The late Mr. Bastard, who was my collabo- 
rator in the first edition of this book, translated for 
me the doggerel rhyme which some unknown poet 
wrote in honour of the establishment. It runs thus — 

" Not many noble strangers 
Can possibly refrain, 
When once they've ate our sausages, 
From eating them again. 
And it usually strikes them, 
If they have not yet found it out, 
That these sausages are splendid 
When they're mixed with sauerkraut. 
The only thing they rail at, 
When they fain would criticise, 
Is to wish the little sausage 
Were a little larger size." 

Built about the year 1400, this tiny hostelry is one 
of the most ancient, if not the oldest, refreshment 
house in the world. Hans Sachs, Peter Vischer, 
Albrecht Durer, Wellebald Pirkheimer, Veit Stoss, 
and other celebrated men in Niiremberg's history in 
the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, all drank the 
beer and ate the sausages of the little inn. Hans 
Sachs seems to have been the best customer of this 
galaxy of great men, for his name is held in the 
greatest honour in the little house of the little sausage, 
where he is regarded as a tutelary saint. 

Two other houses there are entirely devoted to the 
cult of the sausage. One is the Brathwurst Roslein 
Brathwurst ^^ ^^^ goose market, and the other the 

Roslein, Brathwurst Herzle in the Herzgasse. 

Obstgasse Yj^g Brathwurst Roslein has panelled 

rooms, and its adornment is similar to the older estab- 
lishment in that there are rows of beautifully kept 



German Towns 189 

pewter tankards all upside down, arranged as the 
ornamentation of the walls. Here the fare is exactly- 
similar to the little house behind the Moritzcapelle, 
but the surroundings are not so quaint, and it does 
not boast of any great celebrities of bygone days as 
having been its patrons. To the third house of the 
little sausage I have not made a pilgrimage, and have 
no special details concerning it. 

At the Volks Fest, held in September just outside 
the town, all the makers of sausages have booths, and 
all the breweries have gigantic tents serving as beer- 
halls, thus bringing together two of t^e staple products 
of the town. 

Of the taverns in Nuremberg at which general fare 
is served the Goldenes Posthorn, almost opposite the 
Brathwurst Glocklein, is the oldest and Goldenes 
most celebrated. It is almost as old as Posthorn, 
the little house across the way, and its CJlockengasse 
rooms and passages are so crowded with old clocks 
and old pictures, warming pans, tankards, and other 
precious rubbish, that it looks more like a museum 
than a wine restaurant. Its shutters are adorned with 
paintings, and the golden posthorn finds a place in 
much of the ornamentation. It was founded some 
time in the fifteenth century, and Adam Kraft is the 
special celebrity who used to be a customer, and who 
is honoured on its walls above all others. 

Another historical haunt is the cellar in the Nassauer 
Haus, the old building just across the way from the 
Church of St. Lawrence. To get to Nassauer Haus, 
the Nassauer Keller the descent of some Karolinen- 
precipitous stairs into the bowels of the ^^^^^se 
earth is necessary, and the ventilation of this old cellar 
is not of the best, but no doubt ventilation was not 
much considered by the architects of the thirteenth 
century, which was the period at which this part of 
the house was built. 



190 T'he Gour?nefs Guide to Surope 

Of the modern restaurants, the Cafe Kusch, in the 
KaroHnenstrasse, is the most airy and the brightest. 
Cafe Kusch ^^ ^^^ white enamelled walls, with 

Karolinen- ' panelling of light oak to a man's height, 

strasse j^ l^^g^ -^^ ^}^g restaurant, a large balcony 

where men sit and drink their wine. It has a good 
wide staircase, the rails to which are in white metal 
shaped like branches of trees, and such ornamentation 
as there is on the white walls is in quite good taste. 
It seems to be always full of customers, and its break- 
fasts of the day at i mark 75 or 2.50 are well-cooked, 
very satisfying meals. This is a 2.50 breakfast taken 
at random from a number of menus : — 

Gemusewurfel Suppe. 

Salm kalt. 

See. Mayonaise. 

Nurnberger Bratwurstchen. 

Rinderbratea, 

Salat. Compot. 

Zwetschgenkuchen. 

The supper or dinner is usually ordered a la carte. 
The dishes of the day mostly vary in price from 
I mark to 1.50, but there is a set evening meal at 
3 marks. The waiters are in dress clothes, and the 
little boys who serve the wine look clean and fresh in 
white jackets and white aprons. The Cafe Kusch 
has a branch establishment in the Forest outside the 
city, where a band plays, and w^hich is much resorted 
to in the summer. 

In the upper part of the town the great Rathhaus 
has in its cellars the usual wine restaurant. The 
Rathhaus rooms are partially lighted by stained 

Keller glass windows on a level with the street, 

the ceiling is painted, and the walls panelled. Herr 
Karl Giessing, the lessee, has brought these cellars into 
celebrity owing to the excellence of their wines. 



Ger?nan 'Towns 191 

The cafe restaurant Kunstler is in a new building 
on the ramparts, opposite to the Grand Hotel. You 
go along a terrace ornamented with Kunstler, on 
little trees and flowers in pots to reach t^e ramparts 
this restaurant. The walls of the rooms are adorned 
with antlers' and stags' heads, and the food served 
there are the usual simple German dishes. Of the 
restaurants of the hotels, the Fottinger pottinger, 
has the interest of being very old. It Konigstrasse 
has a little terrace in front of it, sheltered from the 
street by creepers in boxes. Its rooms are panelled 
with wood painted green. The restaurant of the 
Rotter Hahn, which is in high favour with the towns- 
people, has a good deal of ornamentation on its walls, 
and its windows look out on to the Konigstrasse. 
The Wurtemburger Hof, in the Bahnhofplatz, has 
a little grove of trees in its inside court, wurtemburger 
which is a pleasant place in which to Hof, Balinhof- 
sit at tea or coflFee time. The Grand P^^*^ 
has a garden terrace, and the cuisine of all the hotels 
is much of a muchness. There are restaurants in 
the suburbs, both at the Rosenau and in the Stadt 
Park. At the latter the Cafe Maxfeldt, Maxfeldt, 
a large building with the usual wilder- stadt Park 
ness of chairs and tables and a bandstand before it, 
always has ready the sandwiches and cold meats 
which serve as supper for people with simple tastes, 
but if a hot meal is required it is well to order it 
beforehand by telephone. 

AFTER DINNER 

At the Stadt Theater you may expect to find grand 
opera, or opera comique, or classical comedy. At the 
Intimes Theater at the corner of Johannesgasse, the 
comedies are of a lighter order, and at the Apollo 
Theater, which is in the same building as the Hotel 



192 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

Wittelsbach, variety and operetta seasons succeed each 
other throughout the year. A large Viennese cafe 
is in the same building as the Apollo. 

Stuttgart 

There is no town in Germany, Frankfurt excepted, 
through which more British travellers pass on their 
way to other places than Stuttgart. The acquaint- 
ance of most travellers with the restaurants of the 
town begins and ends as a rule with the supper room 
Hotel and the breakfast room in the Hotel 

Marquardt Marquardt. They might go further 

and fare worse. At mid-day, at which time all the 
people from the suburbs are in Stuttgart, the pleasant 
room at Marquardt's, looking out on to the Palace 
Square, is given over to those who lunch at separate 
tables, and who eat the very satisfying lunch of the 
day. At the room in the centre of the hotel, people 
who wish to lunch more cheaply sit cheek by jowl at 
six long tables, while in the centre of this room are 
small tables at which the overflow from the brighter 
room is accommodated. The room with a view is so 
much pleasanter than the interior hall that it is worth 
while securing a table beforehand. Meals a la carte 
can be had at mid-day, but they interfere with the 
business of the set lunch. For supper no choice of 
rooms is given, for that meal is served in the large 
interior hall at small tables, while the other room is 
being got ready for early breakfasters. It is pleasant, 
if one has to catch an early train, to go into a room 
where everything is clean, and fresh, and ready, and 
not to be in the midst of sweeping out and the laying 
of tables by sleepy waiters who look as if they had 
been up all night ; but there are more cheerful supper 
rooms in Stuttgart than that in the hotel. Stuttgart 
is a town of very large and very cheap restaurants. 



German T^owns 193 

The large restaurant and cafe in the Olgar Ban, a 

great pile of buildings opposite the Palace, on the 

eround floor, is ornamented with ^ ^, ^ 

®^ 1 LI 1 11 Cafe, Olga Bau 

statues and marble panels, and has a 

well-painted ceiling. In this restaurant is a raised 
terrace reached by two flights of stairs. It has, as is 
usual in Southern Germany, its fixed price mid-day 
meal, and it has also an evening meal at 2 and 3 marks, 
but the custom is to order supper from the bill of fare. 
Baked fillet of turbot, half a roast fowl, with kompot 
and French beans, and a bottle of Apollinaris, which 
was my supper at this restaurant, cost 4 marks 70. 
The band in this restaurant plays from 4 to 1 1 p.m. 
with intervals for rest. The room is very full at 5 
o'clock, and again from 8.30 onwards to close on mid- 
night. The restaurant in the Wilhelm's Bau, a great 
building in the Konigstrasse, is perhaps wilhelm's Bau. 
the best of all these restaurants. At Konigstrasse 
mid-day it offers the choice of four meals at prices 
ranging between i mark and 3. Waitresses do the 
waiting at this big restaurant, and at night a band 
plays in the centre of the vast space of tables and 
chairs. In the Friedrich's Bau, in the priedrich's 
Schlosstrasse, there is a big restaurant Bau, Schios- 
of wide arches on the ground floor, and s^^^^se 
on the first floor a cafe and a variety theatre. It may 
be wise to sound a warning note not to try tea in any 
of the Stuttgart cafes. At two of them at which I 
was unwise enough to order tea in the afternoon 
instead of coffee, I got hot water which had in it a 
far-away taste of tea-leaves. The coffee at the cafes 
is good, and in summer time the ices and cakes are 
excellent. In the Konigs Bau, in the cafe Konias 
colonnade which looks on to the Schloss- Bau, Schloss- 
platz, is a very beautifully decorated P^^*^ 
little cafe ornamented with polished woods and old 
2;old. Its customers are quiet and aristocratic, and I 



♦ 



N 



194 ^h^ Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

found it a pleasant place at which to drink coffee of 
an afternoon. It has at its back a second room, all 
white, which seems to be a favourite meeting-place 
for ladies. Any man interested in eccentric places of 
entertainment might look in at the Gasthaus Oetinger 
Gasthaus ^" ^^^ Bebenhauserstrasse. The house, 

Belbenhauser- a funny little old building, is adorned 
strasse with many paintings inside and outside, 

and has as its sign a stag's antlers. On the one 
occasion on which I was taken to this little house I 
found a concert in progress, in an atmosphere of much 
smoke, and beer, and joviality. A half-hour spent 
there I found amply sufficient. 

In the midst of Old Stuttgart, in the market-place, 
stands the fine new Rathhaus, and the restaurant in its 
The Rathhaus wine-cellars is fresh and new, like the 
Kellaren j-est of the building. There is one room 

of green and gold and another of white walls above a 
skirting of green panels. These cellars are better 
ventilated than most of their kind, and the simple 
food and the wine are both to be recommended. 

On one occasion, when I found Marquardt's too 
full to find me a room, I stayed at the Royal Hotel 
and lunched in its garden behind the house, finding 
nothing to complain of in my meal. 

A band plays in the evenings in the Stadt Gardens, 

„^ ,^ „ , and there 'is the usual " restauration " 

Stadt Gardens , • , • i i ^ • ^ 

there, with its cold meat and its sand- 
wiches, its coffee and its beer. 

In the suburbs of Stuttgart there are many little 
places of refreshment. There is one of these at the 
mineral baths at the entrance to Kannstadt, and 
another on the Neckarinsel, the island in the midst 
of the river, which is often an amusing place to visit 
on a fine afternoon. On the Hasenberg, whence the 
views are very fine, there is a restaurant at the Jager- 
haus and at Degerloch, which also boasts of its views, 



German T'owns 195 

The Schweizer Haus and the Wilhelmshohe are two 
restaurants from the gardens of which one sees a fine 
panorama. 

AFTER DINNER 

At the Residenz Theater, the last time I was in 
Stuttgart, a German version of " Loute " was being 
played, which is a proof that that theatre does not 
depend entirely upon classical comedy. At the 
Wilhelm Theater an Austrian operetta was the piece 
of the evening, and the only German play at any of 
the theatres was a comedy at the Schauspiel Theater, 
a new building behind the Wilhelm's Bau. On the 
first floor of the Friedrich's Bau is a big variety theatre 
which, judging from the programme I have sat 
through on two occasions, has a marked partiality 
for British turns. 



Frankfort-on-Main 

Frankfort is the "jumping-off place" for so many 
of the fashionable " cure " towns and is such a sreat 
centre of the railway systems that travellers innume- 
rable with plenty of money to spend pass through 
it all the year round. The hotels accommodate them- 
selves to their cosmopolitan clientele^ and a very good 
dinner, French to all intents and purposes, is to be 
obtained in the restaurants of the half-dozen leading 
hotels. The Englischerhof, at the corner of Kaiser- 
strasse, is the old-established house of good feeding in 
Frankfort. Thence went Mons. Jules and founded 
the Furstenhof, opposite the theatre. Ritz, the 
Napoleon of the hotel and restaurant world, is, or 
was, a partner in the ownership of the Frankfurter- 
hof, in the Kaiserplatz, and he gave personal atten- 
tion to the organisation of the restaurant, where I 



196 T'he Goiirmefs Guide to Surope 

have always found the cookery excellent, though it is 
as well to secure a table at a distance from the band. 
Mons. Autor, who was manager of the Carlton in 
London for some years, followed his chief's example, 
and going into partnership with Herr Boening of 
Baden-Baden, opened the Carlton Hotel, which, 
with its restaurant, grill-room, and palm-court, is a 
very close copy of its namesake in London. The 
Hotel Imperial, in the Opernplatz, an hotel with an 
aristocratic clientele^ profits by its closeness to the 
Opera House, and its restaurant has its full share 
of the suppers after the opera — though, be it said, 
Frankfort is a town of early hours. 

The Falstaff Restaurant in the Theaterplatz has 
always had a reputation for good sound German 
The Falstaff, cookery. It is now an annexe to 
Theaterplatz the new Westminster Hotel in the 
Goetheplatz, of which Herr Emil Kathe is proprietor. 

Buerose, on the first floor of No. 29 Goethestrasse, 
Buerose should be mentioned as a quiet res- 

29 Goethe- taurant, where there are specialites of 

strasse ^^^^ (TcEUvre and excellent oysters. 

The Palmen Garten is a pleasant summer restaurant 
a little way out of the town, on the Bockenheimer- 
Palmen Garten, strasse. It^ has a fine dining-hall, and 
Bockenheimer- you may sit at little tables while the 
strasse regimental band discourses excellent 

music. The cooking is of the sound German cuisine. 
It is a very pleasant spot to visit on a hot day. Fire- 
works form part of the programme of amusements on 
fete days. 

The Rathskeller is a restaurant which is in the 
Romer, the group of houses which form the Town 
Hall buildings. 

Lovers of good beer will find at the Haus Alle- 
mania, Schillerplatz, if they ask for a Schoppen of 
the Miinchener Hofbrau, exactly v/hat they have 



German T'owns 197 

been craving for ; aiid the Pilsener at the Kaiserhof 
Restaurant in the Goetheplatz is equally good. One 
has to sample several glasses of each before one can 
definitely make up one's mind as to which is the best. 
The Kaisergarten in the Operaplatz is a pleasant 
beer garden much frequented in summer. 



AFTER DINNER 

Frankfort prides itself on its Opera House. It has 
two other theatres, and there is generally a concert in 
the evening both at the Palm Garden and the Zoolo- 
gical Gardens. There is a restaurant attached to the 
former establishment, and a cafe. 

DiJSSELDORF 

The best restaurant in Diisseldorf is that of the 
Park Hotel on the Corneliusplatz. It is one of the 
best on the Rhine, and was opened in park Hotel, 
April 1902 on the occasion of the Corneliusplatz 
Diisseldorf Exhibition ; it is a fine building, and has 
pretty grounds and ornamental water adjoining it. It 
is frequented by the highest German nobility. 

Luncheons are served at 3 marks, dinners at 5 marks. 
Suppers for 3 marks are served at prix fixe^ or one can 
order a la carte. The Moselle wines are exceptionally 
good. The restaurant, handsomely decorated in the 
style of Louis XIV., is opposite the Opera House and 
overlooks the Hofgarten. 

At the Thiirnagel Restaurant, also in the Cor- 
neliusplatz, you are likely to find the artistic colony 
in session. The restaurant dates back Thiirnagel, 
to the year 1858. There is a good Corneliusplatz 
collection of wines in the cellars, and a word may be 
said in favour of its cookery. 



198 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe 



AFTER DINNER 

Two theatres and a variety hall, the Apollo, are the 
choice Diisseldorf offers after dinner. The Apollo 
sometimes provides operettas. 

The Rhine Valley 

The Rhine valley is not a happy hunting ground 
for the gourmet. The excellent old-fashioned Hotel 
du Nord at Cologne has in summer its sheltered 
restaurant in the fresh air overlooking a charming 
garden. A little band plays, and the tinkle of a 
fountain joins with the music. The city also has its 
picturesque Gurzenich in which is a restaurant ; its 
inhabitants eat their oysters in the saloon in the Kleine 
Bugenstrasse, part of a restaurant there, and listen to 
the band at the Neuesstadt Theater or the Stapelhaus 
as they drink their wine. A Kempinski restaurant 
has lately been opened in the Hohestrasse. There 
are restaurants in the Stadtgarten, and the Flora and 
Zoological Gardens. Coblentz in summer has two 
or three terrace restaurants, the Monopol being the 
best, the great attractions of which are the views of 
Ehrenbreitstein and of the bridge of boats. A special 
word of commendation may be given to the balcony 
restaurant of the Hotel Mattern at Konigswinter. 
At every little town on either bank there are one or 
more taverns with a view where the usual rather messy 
food of provincial Germany is to be obtained, good 
beer always, and generally excellent wine made from 
the vineyards on the mountain side. Now and again 
some restaurant-keeper has a little pool of fresh water 
in front of his house, and one can select one's fish to 
be cooked for breakfast. The wines of the district are 
far better than its food. 



German 'Towns 199 

Rudesheim, Schloss Johannisberg, the Steinberg 
Abbey above Hattenheim, are of course household 
words, and the man who said that travelling along 
the Rhine was like reading a restaurant wine-list had 
some justification for his Philistine speech. One 
does not expect to discover the real Steinberg Cabinet 
in a village inn, and the Johannisberg generally found 
in every hotel in Rhineland is a very inferior wine to 
that of the Schloss, and is grown in the vineyards round 
Dorf Johannisberg. I have memories of excellent 
bottles of wine at Ress's at Hattenheim, and at the 
Engel at Erbach ; but the fact that I was making a 
walking tour may have added to the delight of the 
draughts. The Marcobrunn vineyards lie between 
Hattenheim and Erbach. The Hotel Victoria at 
Bingen has its own vineyards, and makes a capital 
wine ; and in the valley of the river below Bingen 
almost every little town and hill — Lorch, Boppard, 
Horcheim, and the Kreuzberg — has its own par- 
ticular brand, generally excellent. Assmanhausen, 
which gives such an excellent red wine, is on the 
opposite bank to Bingen and a little below it. The 
Rhine boats have a very good assortment of wines 
on board, but it is wise to run the finger a little 
way down the list before ordering your bottle, for, 
though the steamboats keep capital cellars, the very 
cheap wines on the Rhine are, as is usual in all 
countries, of the thinnest description. Most of the 
British doctors on the Continent make the greater 
part of their living by attending their fellow-country- 
men who drink everywhere anything that is given 
them free, and who hold that the vin du pays must be 
drinkable because it is the wine of the country. Our 
compatriots often swallow the throat-cutting stuff 
which the farm labourers and stable hands drink, 
sooner than pay a little extra money for the sound 
wine of the district. The foreigner who came to 



200 The Gourmets Guide to Europe 

Great Britain and drank our newest cider, our cheapest 
ale, and rawest whisky would go away with a poor 
impression of the liquors of our country. Drink the 
wine of the district where they make good wine, but 
do not grudge the extra shilling which makes all the 
difference in quality. I have been gently reproved 
for saying, in the first edition of this book, that the 
lunches on the big express boats of the Rhine are 
a scramble for food, and am told that the 3-mark 
meal in the middle of the day is a triumph of 
organisation. I bow to correction, and must have 
been unfortunate in my experiences. Perhaps I was 
unkind to the fast boats because I was once most 
kindly treated on an old-fashioned slow boat. I have 
a pleasant memory of an old head steward, a fatherly 
old gentleman in a silk cap shaped somewhat like an 
accordion, who provided the meals on a leisurely 
steamer which pottered up the Rhine, stopping at 
every village. He gave us local delicacies, took an 
interest in our appetites, and his cookery, though 
distinctively German, was also very good. In a land 
where all the big hotels fill once a day and empty 
once a day, and where the meals are a heavy-handed 
imitation of French cookery, that old man with his 
stews and roasts, and pickles, veal, and pork, sausages 
big and sausages small, strange cheeses, and Delikatessen 
of all kinds, was a good man to meet. 

HOMBURG 

The " Homburg Dinner" has become a household 
word, meaning that a certain number of men and 
women agree to dine together at one of the hotels, 
each one paying his or her own share in the expenses. 
During the past few years, owing to the desire to 
spend money shown by some millionaires, British and 
American, who are not happy unless they are giving 



German ^fowns 201 

expensive dinners every night to a score of guests, 
this pretty old custom seems likely to die out. In 
no German town are there better hotels than at 
Homburg, and one dines on a warm day in very 
pleasant surroundings, for Ritter's has its world- 
famous terrace, where tables have been reserved at 
one time or another for most of the crowned heads 
of Europe, and some of the other hotels have very 
delightful open-air restaurants in their gardens. Sim- 
plicity, good plain food well cooked, is insisted on 
by the doctors at Homburg, and therefore a typical 
Homburg dinner is a very small affair compared to 
German feasts over which the doctors fitter's Kaiser 
do not have control. This is a dinner Friedricli Pro- 
of the day at Ritter's, taken haphazard ^e^^^® 
from a little pile of menus, and it may "be accepted as 
a typical Homburg dinner : — 

Potage Crecy au Riz. 

Truite de Lac. Sauce Genevoise. Pommes Natures. 

Longe de Veau a la Hongroise. 

Petits pois au Jambon. 

Chapons de Chalons rotis. 

Salade and Compots. Peches a la Cardinal. 

Fruits. Dessert. 

The hotels at Homburg are always quite full in the 
season. No hotel-keeper puts any pressure on his 
guests to dine at his hotel, and you may have your 
bedroom in one hotel and dine at* another every 
night of your life so far as the proprietors care. The 
restaurant at the Kurhaus goes up and down in 
public favour. The alterations made to the Kurhaus in 
1907, which has given it new reading and writing, 
card, billiard, and smoking rooms, have made it once 
again fashionable to dine on the Kurhaus terrace. 
Herr Matthay, who is the director of the restaurant, 
has risen from the ranks, and remembers all the celeb- 



202 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Bur ope 

rities who used to dine and sup at the Kurhaus in 
the old gaming days. All the world always goes to 
the terrace later in the evening to walk up and down 
while the band plays. 

The Golf Club has a course amongst the trees 
which has now been extended to eighteen holes. 
Golfers says that if you acquire a taste for the game 
on the Homburg links you appreciate its novelties 
immensely. 

Wiesbaden 

At Wiesbaden you generally dine where you sleep, 
in your hotel. I myself have generally stayed at the 
Kaiserhof, because I like to eat my supper on its 
creeper-hung terrace and look across the broad valley 
to the Taunus hills ; but there are half-a-dozen hotels 
in the town (the Nassauerhof in particular, which 
many people consider the best hotel in Germany) 
having capital restaurants, serving table (fhote meals, 
attached to them. The Rose has a little terrace, 
looking on to the gardens, which is a pleasant supping 
place. 

Herr Ruthe's Restaurant at the Kurhaus is the 
one quite first-class dining place not attached to an 
Ruthe's, Kur- hotel. In the winter, in the dining- 
^^^s room and the glassed-in verandah, and 

in summer under the little trees, with the lake in 
full view, all the people who have grown weary of 
looking at the same faces in their hotel restaurants 
may be found eating their dinners. Herr Ruthe is 
always to be found somewhere in the establishment, 
and any diner who does not know the resources of 
the establishment cannot do better than consult him 
before ordering dinner. 

The Foyer Restaurant in the Royal Theatre is a 
quiet and pleasant place at which to take meals in the 
daytime. 



German Towns 203 

The wine-house, the Rathskeller, is one of the 
sights of the place. Therein are quaint frescoes and 
furniture, there the usual German food is obtainable, 
and you have a choice of German wines such as 
is obtainable in few other wine-drinking places in 
Germany. 

Any one who likes the open tarts of apple and 
other fruits — a rather sticky delicacy it always seems 
to me — can eat them at ease of an afternoon looking 
at the beautiful view from the Neroberg or watching 
the Rhine from under the trees of the hotel gardens 
at Biebrich. 

AFTER DINNER 

The Royal Opera House is a very splendid one, 
and the Kaiser takes special interest in the perform- 
ances given there. The Residenz Theater has been 
rebuilt on a better site than the old one occupied. 
Walhalla is the variety theatre. 



Baden-Baden 

Baden-Baden is always a bright and cheerful 
watering-place, and it retains more of the dignity 
and the luxury of the old gambling days than any 
of the other German towns of baths, except perhaps 
Homburg. Baden has always attracted a great number 
of well-to-do French, and though the French element 
diminished for a time after the years of the war, the 
wounds of that dreadful time seem to have healed, and 
French is almost as much talked as English amongst 
the visitors in the Lichtentaler Allee, and on the broad 
gravel space before the Konversation Haus. As else- 
where in South Germany, it is the custom at Baden to 
eat a table crhote meal in the middle of the day, and those 
of the visitors who are not away on some excursion 



204 ^'^^^ Gourf7Jefs Guide to Siirope 

generally eat this meal at their hotels or at the res- 
taurant of the Konversation Haus. 

The restaurants of the hotels are mostly good ones, 
those of the Stephanie, and of the Englischer Hof, in 
Hotel Mesmer particular being e;xcellent. The Mes- 
Konversation mer, which is quite close to the Kon- 
Haus Square versation Haus, is the hotel where the 
Emperor William I. and the Empress Augusta used to 
spend a month in the spring and one in the autumn 
every year, and its restaurant, though not as lively 
as those I have previously mentioned, is quite first- 
class. 

Supper at Baden-Baden is a light meal, but quite a 
gay one, for the ladies are all in evening toilettes and 
Stephanie wear their most beautiful hats. The 

Hotel, Lichten- Stephanie is a hotel to which most 
taler AUee people gravitate for this evening meal, 

and during the race fortnight and the lawn-tennis 
fortnight it is necessary to secure a table there in 
advance. The restaurant of the Stephanie is a great 
verandah enclosed in glass, and the hotel band plays 
in the lounge which is just outside the restaurant. 
Supper in this restaurant during the great weeks of the 
year brings together a most interesting cosmopolitan 
gathering, and the management is so good that the 
hundreds of supper-givers, each having ordered a 
different supper, are all served in reasonable time, and 
one hears no grumbling or complaints. After supper 
at the Stephanie people either go to the Konversation 
Haus to walk up and down on the wide promenade 
and to listen to the great orchestra, or sit in the 
Stephanie lounge for a while, the little band of the 
hotel making music for them. At ten o'clock on 
these occasions the great white ball-room of the 
Stephanie is thrown open, and the young people 
dance for an hour before bed-time. 

M. Autor, who was so well known to English and 



German l^owns 205 

Americans as the manager of the London Carlton, 
is a partner of Herr Boeming at the Englischer Hof, 
Englischer Hof, which is also on the Lichtentaler 
Lichtentaler Allee, and the restaurant ^^^^^ 
of this hotel, though not perhaps as lively and 
amusing as is that of the Stephanie, has a celebrity 
for good cookery and good service. 

The terrace of the restaurant of the Konversation 
Haus is a pleasant place to sup or breakfast or to 
drink coffee in the afternoon. People Konversation 
who sup there sit on at their tables to ^^^^ 
listen to the band, and this supping in the open air 
is a pleasant change sometimes from the hotel res- 
taurants. In the afternoon, when the band plays, the 
tables on the terrace and on the gravel before the 
terrace are all occupied. 

Of the restaurants in the town, that of the Three 
Kings in the Langestrasse is much favoured in winter 
time. It is a pleasant old hostel, newly -nie Three 
renovated, and with an airy restaurant. Kings, Lange- 
The house has two hundred years of s^^^^^® 
history behind it. The Krokodil, which also looks 
out on to the Langestrasse, has a Krokodil, 
winter garden, and is also much fre- Langestrasse 
quented in winter, but is hardly so attractive as the 
Three Kings. 

There are restaurants at most of the points which 
serve as turning places in walks or drives from Baden. 
At " Fischculter," where the trout-breeding pools are, 
there is an inn which naturally makes trout its 
specialty. There is a restaurant on the top of the 
Staufenberg, and one at the ruins of Ebersteinbcrg, 
and another at the Geroldsauer waterfalls. But the 
most charming of these country restaurants is the one 
at the old castle on the shoulder of the mountain 
which towers above Baden-Baden. The restaurant is 
in a little courtyard outside the great walls of the 



2o6 T'he Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

ruin, and its proprietor must be a lover of birds, for 
by the gateway is an aviary, and in the courtyard 
every available space on the walls is taken up by cages 
full of singing birds. The courtyard resounds with 
the twitterings and the trills of the birds, music which 
is a change from that of the bands down in the valley. 
The wines of the duchy, both red and white, are 
excellent, the Eberblut, grown on the slopes of the 
mountain on which is built Schloss Eberstein, having 
a special celebrity. 

Baden-Baden Clubs 

The International Club is very hospitable to properly 
introduced strangers. Its headquarters are at No. 4 
Lichtentaler Allee. Temporary membership during 
race weeks carries admission to the course and to a 
special stand. The golf course is at Oos, and is quite 
close to the railway station there. The lawn-tennis 
pavilion and courts are in the Lichtentaler Allee. 

AFTER DINNER 

I have, I think, indicated the usual evening amuse- 
ments of visitors to Baden-Baden in the above notes, 
but there is also a theatre close to the Konversation 
Haus, where there is a performance of comedy or 
opera every night, and there are occasional concerts, 
very good ones, in the great rooms of the Konver- 
sation Haus, On Saturday evenings there is usually 
a ball at the Konversation Haus. 

Ems 

Ems has a restaurant in the Kursaal, near which 
the band plays in the evening, said to be good ; and 
also one in the Kurhaus, The Schaweitzerhaiischenj 



German T'owns 207 

on the slope of the Malberg, and the Rottmannshohe, 
also on this hill, are two of the breakfast-places. 
There is a restaurant at the end of the Konig 
Wilhelm's Allee. 

Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) 

Henrion's Grand Hotel is the favourite dining- 
place of the Anglo-Saxon colony in Aachen. M. 
Intra, the proprietor, lays himself out Henrion's, 
to attract the English. 'The German Corneliusbath 
civil servants and the doctors have a club-table at 
which they dine, and they exact fines from the 
members of their club for drinking wine which costs 
more than a certain price, &c. &c., these fines being 
collected in a box and saved until they make a sum 
large enough to pay for a special dinner. Every 
member of this club is required to leave in his will 
a money legacy to the club to be expended in wine 
drunk to his memory. There are two table d'^hote 
meals, at 1.30 and at 7 p.m. At the first the dishes 
are cooked according to the German cuisine, at the 
second according to the French. Suppers are served 
in the restaurant at any hour. 

Lennertz's restaurant and oyster-saloon in the 
Klostergasse is a curious, low-ceilinged, old-fashioned 
house which, before Henrion's came Lennertz's, 
into favour, had most of the British Klostergasse 
patronage. Its cooking is excellent, and the German 
Hausfraus used to be sent to Lennertz's to study for 
their noble calling. The carte de jour has not many 
dishes on it. Everything has to be ordered a la carte^ 
but the prices are all reasonable, and it is possible 
to make a bargain that a dinner shall be given for 
a fixed price. The Omelettes Souffiees are a specialty 
of the house. The fish used in Lennertz's comes 
from Ostende, and the Dutch oysters are excellent. 



2o8 T'he Gotirmefs Guide to Europe 

Some of the magnificent Moselle wine laid down by 
the late proprietor is still obtainable. 

A new restaurant, the Carlton, is a feature of the 
good old-fashioned Grand Monarque Hotel. 

Scheufen Kremer's Restaurant, opposite the theatre, 
has good cookery, but is expensive. Eulenspiegel is 
an establishment which is worth a visit. It is in 
Kramerstrass. 

The Alt-Bayern in Wirischsbongardstrasse is the 
beer-house which is most to be recommended ; and 
the Germania, in Friedrich-Williamplatz, is celebrated 
for its coffee. 

AFTER DINNER 

The large theatre is only open in the winter. The 
Eden, in Franzstrass, is the music hall of the town. 

Hamburg 

Hamburg is a town of good eating and good 
drinking. The restaurant above all others which 
Pfordte's ^^^ given it its celebrity in this respect 

Restaurant, is Pfordte's Restaurant, which used 

AnderAlster ^^ y^^ jj^ ^|^e Rathhaus Gardens, but 
which has now been moved to the Atlantic Hotel, 
An der Alster. Pfordte's Restaurant, in its different 
habitations, dates back to the year 1828, when it was 
established in one of the numerous cellars which are 
in the basements of many of the houses near the 
Alster and the Bourse. These cellars have as their 
specialties oysters, lobsters and other shell-fish, game 
and truffles, and they are much frequented by business 
men for luncheon and by playgoers for supper after 
the theatre. Herr Pfordte, who had become director 
of this cellar in i860, moved it to the street which 
runs from the Alster Dam to the Rathhaus Gardens, 
and there, at the corner of the gardens, established the 



German T'owns 209 

restaurant which obtained fame all over the world, 
Herr Pfordte is a man of small stature, but of most 
courteous and polished manners, and he is no exception 
to the general rule that small men have usually great 
brains. His restaurant in the Rathhaus Gardens was 
a cosy, pleasant place, where the waiters talked all 
languages under the sun, and where excellent oysters, 
trout from the hill streams, partridges with apricots, 
and truffles en serviette were some of the most appreci- 
ated of the specialties. The special adornment of 
the hall in Pfordte's old restaurant was a picture 
painted for Herr Pfordte under rather unusual con- 
ditions. The painter wished to give a dinner to his 
club friends and consulted Herr Pfordte as to the 
price. Pfordte said that he would supply the dinner, 
and that as payment the artist should paint him a 
picture. The dinner was given, and was said at the 
time to have been the best dinner ever served in 
Germany, and the artist showed his appreciation of 
it by painting a masterpiece. 

Herr Pfordte is now to be found amidst new and 
far more luxurious surroundings than in his old res- 
taurant, but something of the charm, something of 
the cosiness, seems to have evaporated in the change. 
The excellent cellar of wines which Pfordte had 
collected in his old house has been moved without 
any accident to the cellars of the Atlantic, and the 
Bordeaux of numerous choice vintages which Pfordte 
collected taste as well on the banks of the Alster as 
they did at the edge of the gardens. But the present 
restaurant is far smarter than the old one, and whereas 
at the old Pfordte's the German gentlemen who 
frequented it did not as a rule wear dress clothes, at 
the new Pfordte's, if you wish to obtain a table in the 
big front room which looks on to the Alster, it is 
wise to go there in dress clothes. The big room of 
the new restaurant is panelled with light brown 





210 The Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

wood, its windows have a view over the Alster, and 
there is always a profusion of flowers in its window- 
boxes. The other rooms are all well decorated, one 
with green walls and a green carpet having a sug- 
gestion of the snugness of the old Pfordte's. A string 
band plays during meals, the " Chasseurs " wear 
scarlet jackets, and all the surroundings are those of a 
modern up-to-date cosmopolitan restaurant. The 
price of the dinner of the day at the old Pfordte's used 
to be 6 marks, but at the new Pfordte's it has risen to 
7 marks. The bill of fare in old days used to give 
a choice of four or five dishes in each course. Now 
a choice of two dishes in each course is considered 
sufficient. As a curiosity, more than as a guide to 
what may be expected at the present Pfordte's, I give 
the average menu of the dinner of the day at the old 
Pfordte's. The English celery distinguishes what we 
know as celery from celleriac or Dutch celery, which 
is largely used in salads in North Germany. The 
Junge Puter is a very young turkey poult. It is to 
the young turkey what the poussin is to the chicken. 

Potage a la Stuart. 

Potage creme d'orge a la Viennoise. 

Potage puree de concombres au cerfeuil. 

Consomme Xavier. 

Filets von Seezungen (soles) a la Joinville. 

Steinbutt (turbot) sauce moscovite. 

Rheinlachs kalt, sauce mayonnaise. 

Boeuf braise a I'alsacienne. 

Rehbriicken (venison) a la Conti. 

Lammviertel a la Provengale. 

Roast beef a la Clamart. 

Artischoken sauce hollandaise. 

Salat braisirt mit jungen Erbsen. 

Engl.' Sellerie mit Mark. 

Junge Flageolets a la Maitre. 

Spanishe PfefFerschoten farcirt. 



German 'Towns 211 

Junge Ente (duckling). 

Rebhuhn (partridge). 

Junge Puter. 

Escarolle-Salat mit Tomaten. 

Erd-beer-Eiscreme panache Fruchttorte. 

Kase. 

Though I regret the passing of the old Pfordte's, 
with its cosiness and its plenitude of dishes, and its 
feeling that the master's eye was on everything, I 
must bear witness to the brightness and smartness and 
good cookery and good service of the new Pfordte's 
in the Atlantic. 

Another hotel restaurant quite of the first class is 
that attached to the Esplanade Hotel, the great hotel 
owned by the same company as the 
Carlton of London, and the restaurant 
of which is modelled on the same lines as the famous 
restaurant in Pall Mall. The Esplanade Hotel is close 
to the Botanical Gardens. 

Kempinski's on the Jungfernstieg is a typical 
German restaurant of a good class. On the ground 
floor is an American bar, screened off Kempinski's, 
from the hall, in which are many cane 24 Jungfernstieg 
easy chairs with bright pink cushions. On the first 
floor is a great room with a glassed-in balcony, over- 
looking the Kleine Alster, one of the waterways of 
this city of canals. The woodwork of this great room 
is mahogany, and the pillars are of green marble. 
There is a long list of dishes on the card of the day 
at Kempinski's, the highest priced of these being 
I mark 50 heller, while the soups and the vegetable 
dishes are priced in our money at fourpence. Special 
dishes, especially dishes of crab when in season, are 
in the biggest print. From 11.30 till 3 a luncheon 
of four courses is ready, and costs 2 marks, and a 
dinner of six courses is to be obtained from 3 p.m. 
to 8 P.M., and costs 3 marks. As I dined late at 



212 T7z^ Gourmet's Guide to Surope 

Kempinski's, I did not risk a dinner which must have 
been partially prepared for some hours, and dined quite 
well a la carte. 

The Alster Pavilion, looking on to the smaller of 
the two lakes, the Binnen Alster, is a cafe more than 
Alster Pavilion, 3. restaurant. It has two great semi- 
Jungfernstieg- circles of windows overlooking the lake, 
and its red window-boxes, its red and green chairs, its 
little trees on the flat roof, its blue and white tiles and 
its gilding, make it as bright as a new penny piece. A 
legion of pigeons live on the roof, and come down to 
pick up the crumbs which are thrown to them from 
the people who sit at the tables. There is food of a 
simple kind to be obtained at this bright cafe and 
wine and beer house, and the pot of caviare which 
formed the basis of a supper I ate there was quite 
good. Its balconies and the space before its doors 
seem always to be filled by a good-natured crowd 
. of merry-makers ; there is music there at all hours, 
' and it plays quite an important part in the life of 
Hamburg. 

The Ferry House at Eulenhorst, which juts out 
into the Aussen Alster, the bigger of the two lakes. 
The Ferry House, is some little distance from the central 
Eulenliorst p^rt of the town, and a pleasant way of 

reaching it is by steamer. On a sunny afternoon a 
large contingent of all Hamburg goes out there to 
drink coffee. A long white restaurant with a glassed-in 
balcony provides shelter should a shower of rain come 
on, and there are innumerable tables and chairs under 
the trees on the little promontory, all of which are 
occupied in fine weather. The Pavilion is made gay 
with boxes of bright flowers, and, like the Alster 
Pavilion, it is patronised by bright and merry people. 

At the Zoological Gardens there are two restaurants, 
with balconies overlooking the beer garden, in which 
a military band plays. 



German T'owns ^ 213 

The Rathskeller of Hamburg is in the modern 
Rathhaus, and is finely decorated in " Altdeutsch " 
style, with frescoes and paintings by well-known 
artists. The Kaiser Keller is below Kempinski's, on 
a level with the water. 

The oyster cellars of Hamburg are noted for their 
excellent lunches. Bouillon, cutlets, steaks, caviare, 
lachs, and other viands are served, and English 
" porter," generally Combe's Stout, is much drunk. 
Another British production, '^ Chester " cheese, which 
is red Cheshire, is much in demand. At supper in 
these cellars, and also in Berlin, caviare is much in 
demand, the small Baltic variety, not the Russian, 
which is lighter in colour and larger in grain. A 
pot of it, large or small, according to the number of 
supperers, is put on the table in a bowl of crushed ice, 
and your Hamburger, who is a good judge of victuals 
as he is of drink, makes his supper of it. 

There is a British Club in Hamburg at 42 Grosse 
Bleichen, but of it I only know the particulars set 
down in Mr. Austen Leigh's Cluhs^ that it is for 
British subjects, and that the yearly subscription is 
^i, lOS. 

AFTER DINNER 

My experience of the performances at the higher- 
class theatres of Hamburg is nil, for my visits to the 
port have always been paid in summer, when the Stadt 
Theater, the big house for opera and comedy, the 
Schauspiel, and the Thalia, have been closed ; but I 
have heard Austrian operettas well sung at the Carl 
Schultze, and have passed quite amusing evenings, 
spending a half-hour here and a half-hour there in 
the various music halls and shows in the amusement 
quarter of St. Pauli. Hagenbach's Menagerie is open 
all the year round, and so are most of the large variety 
houses. 



214 ^^'^^ Gourmet's Guide to Bur ope 

Kiel 

The hotels and restaurants of Kiel are neither 

numerous nor recherche^ and, with the exception of the 

sailors' rendezvous, are mostly closed during the winter. 

The Seebade-Anstalt is about the best 
Seebade-Anstalt ^ . u -i^ u tj -u- 

restaurant ; it was built by Herr Krupp 

and is managed by an Englishman. Above it are the 

fine rooms of the Imperial Yacht Club. These, 

during the regatta week, which generally takes place 

at the end of June, are crowded with yachtsmen of 

all nationalities, to whom the Kaiser dispenses most 

gracious hospitality. When the extensive anchorage, 

surrounded by green and wooded hills, is full of every 

description of yacht, foremost among which is the 

Hohen%ollern and many German battleships, it forms 

a scene at once impressive and gay. 

The Hotel Germania has a very fair restaurant 
attached to it. 

The Rathskeller is well conducted, and was built 
by the municipal authorities. 

The Weinstuben, Paul Fritz, is a good refreshment 
place, but is mostly frequented by the students and 
officers. 

The Seegarten is a pretty little place overlooking 
the harbour, where German beer is the principal 
article of commerce. 

At the Miinchener Burgerbrau the beer is good 
but the surroundings dismal. 

There is a nine-hole golf course at Kitzeberg. 



VII 

BERLIN 

The Classic Restaurants — The Hotel Restaurants — Restaurants of 
the People — Military Restaurants — Cafes, Cabarets, and Bars 
—Open-air Restaurants — Clubs. 

Berlin is plentifully supplied with restaurants, for 
both the Kaiser and the Berlin Municipality give 
every encouragement to enterprising hotel-keepers 
and restaurateurs who build up-to-date restaurants. 
Every good German is anxious that Berlin should 
rival Paris as a city of pleasure and amusement, and 
the old staid Prussian capital has now become one 
of the most go-ahead cities in the world. Its small 
theatres and music-halls and cabarets are very lively, 
all its new restaurants are tremendously gorgeous, and 
Berlin now keeps hours which even Paris would con- 
sider late. The feeding in Berlin is in rather a mixed 
state, and all the restaurants which cater both for the 
Berliners and for the strangers who are within the 
city gates are compelled to serve meals all day and 
nearly all night long. Their German clients, after 
the coffee and rolls they have eaten very early in the 
morning, are ready for a " snack " of some kind or 
another and a glass of wine or a tumbler of beer at 
about 1 1 A.M. This enables them to postpone their 
mid-day meal till 2 o'clock, and lunch often fades like 
a dissolving view into afternoon tea, for Berlin has 
adopted with enthusiasm the English 5 o'clock meal. 

215 



liS The Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

Supper is the next and last meal a German requires, 
and this has to be ready for him when he comes back 
from his business, or from a theatre, or a concert, and 
is generally an a la carte meal. The American or 
Briton so far concedes to the ways of the Continent 
as to eat rolls and drink coffee as his first meal, but he 
wants his lunch at i p.m., and likes to dine before he 
goes to a theatre. At all the new restaurants attached 
to hotels, both sets of clients are conscientiously 
catered for. 

The Classic Restaurants 

Though Berlin has no restaurants which exactly 
correspond to the Cafe Anglais and Voisin's in Paris, 
there have always been some good, quiet restaurants 
where the cookery has been German, but not too 
ferociously Teutonic, where the service has been 
quiet, and which have had the dignity which is part 
of the atmosphere of a classic restaurant in any 
Borchardt's capital. Borchardt's, in the Franzosis- 

Franzdsischer- cherstrasse, I should take to be the 
strasse typical good old-fashioned Berlin res- 

staurant. It was at Borchardt's that the celebrated 
" round table dinners " took place, intimate feasts 
at which the Kaiser was present, and at which Herr 
von Kiderlen-Waechter, the " Man in the Yellow 
Waistcoat," the present Foreign Secretary, and 
Prince Philip zu Eulenberg, and Herr von Hostein, 
the diplomatist who shaped Germany's policy at the 
Algeciras Conference, were others of the guests. 
The public dining-room at Borchardt's is a room of 
crimson silk panels framed in dark wood. It has 
crimson portieres, and the general effect is of stately 
comfort. Little tables are set a good distance apart 
down either side of the room. The waiters all speak 
French if addressed in that language, and I fancy that 



'Berlin 2 1 7 

many of the patrons of the establishment are diplo- 
matists. The carte of the day is in German, and is 
an ample one. The dishes which are ready at a 
moment's notice are printed at the bottom of the 
menu. Those at mid-day, on one of the days I 
lunched at Borchardt's, were baked trout, beefsteak 
ci la Russr, and chicken and rice. At lunch time the 
cold buffet of the restaurant shows a great variety of 
dishes. The prices are not high, compared with a 
first-class restaurant in any other capital, but they are 
high for Berlin, which is a city of cheap feeding. 

This is a dinner I ate at Borchardt's one evening 
in solitary state : — 

Bortch of Crab. 

Cutlets of Venison, Chasseur. 

Coupe a la Diable, 

the latter dish with the diabolical name being of 
iced chocolate, two other kinds of ice, and brandy 
cherries. I drank a half bottle of excellent Lieb- 
fraumilch, a cup of coffee, and a liqueur of old 
Chartreuse, and my bill came to 13 marks. 

Borchardt's has a quite admirable cellar of wines, 
some vintages of champagnes which have long a2;o 
disappeared from British wine lists being still on its 
card, and it has some excellent old cognacs and a fine 
store of the Chartreuse made by the monks while 
they were still at their old home. 

Another quiet old-fashioned restaurant, smaller and 
more retiring than Borchardt's, is Ewest's in Behren- 
strasse. I had been told that Ewest's Ewest's, 26a 
was so conservative that strangers were Behrenstrasse 
not made very welcome there, but I was greeted by a 
portly butler in dress clothes as though I was an old 
friend, and no old client could have been better treated 
than I was. Going through an ante-room one comes 
to the dining-room, of three little rooms thrown into 



:2i8 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

one. The walls are of light green above a skirting of 
wood, the floors are of polished wood. Dark green 
velvet settees and chairs of black leather all tend to 
give the little room a quiet note. A portrait of one 
of the old Prussian kings and a portrait of the Kaiser 
in white tunic and a black cuirass adorn the walls. 
On the menu for lunch I found coquilles of salmon, 
lobster omelette, lobsters, herrings and beans, pork 
cutlets, a gulyas of veal, stuffed chicken, gosling, 
wild cherry open tart, and cream. I ate the omelette, 
a cutlet, and tart, drank a pint of Zeltinger and some 
Mattoni water, and paid a bill which came exactly to 
5 marks. The cookery of the house is excellent and, 
as Julius Ewest is a wine merchant of the highest 
reputation, the wines in the cellar of his little res- 
taurant are admirable. 

The Restaurant Hiller at 62 Unter den Linden, 
and the Restaurant Dressel at 50 Unter den Linden, 
Dressers, 50 used to be two typical BerHn res- 

Unterden taurants, but fashion has rather passed 

^""iw^" fio them by of late years. The Hiller still 

HiUer s, 62 , J r • 1 i i 

Unter den retams some or its old patrons, and 

Linden Louis Adlon, who is its proprietor, is 

hoflieferant to the Kaiser, and one of the firm which 

owns the great hotel near the Brandenburg Gate. 

The prices of meals at Dressel's are : dijeuners^ 2.50 

marks ; dinners, 3.50 and 5.50 marks ; and suppers, 

3 marks. A band plays till i p.m. At Killer's the 

dejeuner is 2.50 marks ; dinner, 5 marks ; and there 

is a " Theatre-Souper " at 5 marks, which is the 

most popular of all the meals at this restaurant. 

The Hotel Restaurants 

The Kaiserhof was the first hotel to give Berlin a 
restaurant and a palm lounge, such as the gourmet 
en voyage is accustomed to in Paris and in London, and 



Berlin 1 1 9 

therefore let me accord it precedence in gossiping about 
the up-to-date restaurants attached to hotels in Berlin. 
The restaurant is lighted by windows Kaiserhof, 
which look out on to a back street, Wiihelmsplatz 
and is rather dark in the daytime, but at night, 
when lighted up, its pink carpet and crimson portieres 
give it a very comfortable appearance. The table 
d'hote prices for dinner are 6, 8, or 10 marks. The 
6-mark dinner, which is also served in the grill-room, 
is an excellent, but not imaginative meal — soup, trout, 
beef, chicken, vegetables, sweets, it ran on the night I 
dined there. The palm lounge is a Teutonic reminis- 
cence of that of the London Carlton. It has the 
same bull's-eye windows, and has a raised platform 
with gilded rails on two sides of the room. The 
furniture in this lounge is heavy and gorgeous, but 
two large palms justify its title. A band plays in 
this lounge till i a.m. The grill-room of the 
Kaiserhof, white-papered and with grey and white 
marble columns, I found a cheerful place at which to 
lunch. It has a verandah looking down from about 
a man's height on to the square. This verandah is 
gay with flowers and creepers and hanging baskets, 
and Berlin life unfolds itself very pleasantly as one 
sits there and watches the comings and goings across 
the busy open space. A 5-mark theatre supper is served 
at the Kaiserhof, and it possesses an American bar. 

The Esplanade in Bellevuestrasse is one of the 
hotels controlled by the people who own the London 
Ritz and Carlton. Its dining-room is The Esplanade, 
almost a reproduction of that of the Bellevuestrasse 
Carlton — pink carpet, chairs upholstered in pink, and 
pink portieres. Its windows look out on to a garden. 
The Esplanade is rich in gardens. It has a large one 
and a small one where afternoon tea is served and 
where a band plays. The board-room of this hotel is 
a handsome panelled room, but has just a little too 



220 T'he Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

much gilt about it. The lounge is also too gorgeous 
for Anglo-Saxon taste. The marble there is veined 
purple, and green trellis, and white marble statues, 
and gilt vases are in too violent contrast with each 
other. The banqueting hall, from one wall of which 
a portrait of the Kaiser looks down on the guests, is 
a fine room with a little stage at one end. As 
wedding feasts often last as long as five hours, little 
comedies played on this stage form a welcome relief 
on those occasions to too much eating and too many- 
speeches. Any habitue of the Ritz or Carlton finds 
himself at home at once at the Esplanade, for some of 
the maitres cPhotel at this restaurant have been at the 
other hotels of the same company, and recognise 
familiar faces very quickly. It pleased me to find 
that my liking for a table at the side in a quiet part of 
the room, and partiality for a short, light dinner, as 
well as my name, seemed to be familiar to everybody 
in the Esplanade restaurant as soon as I set foot inside 
it. Most of the meals at the Esplanade are a la carte^ 
and the carte du jour is in German on one side and 
French on the other. The German clientele of the 
restaurant insist on a table cPhote dinner, which is 
priced at 6 marks, and of which this is a fair specimen. 
I give it in German, but it is on the menu in both 
that language and French : — 

Portugische Kraftbriihe mit Reis. 

Esperancesuppe. 

Forelle Meuniere. 

Rehmignonette Forestiere. 

Selleriepuree. 

Neue Kartoffeln risoles. 

Poularde gebraten. 

Salat. 

Stangenspargel, Hollandische Sauce 

Erdbeeren-Halbgefrorenes. 

Feines Backwerk. 

Kase. 



Berlin 221 

The Esplanade has a pleasant little grill-room, and 
no doubt somewhere in its great corridors there is an 
American bar. 

The restaurant of the Adlon Hotel, the windows 
of which look out on to the Pariserplatz, is mightily- 
gorgeous with marble and gilding. The jjotel Adlon 
hotel is owned by the well-known wine Unter den 
merchants, from whom it takes its i^in^^^n 
name. The great hall of the hotel looks like the 
museum of a millionaire, so many beautiful things 
have been collected there. There are some beautiful 
works of art from Japan, a wonderful clock, a wonder- 
ful staircase, cream marble pillars with bronze capitals, 
magnificent carpets, Venetian mosaics, fine furniture, 
a large bust of the Kaiser in coloured marbles, a 
magnificent fountain, but if there were fewer beauti- 
ful things and less magnificence it would be in better 
taste. The view of the little garden seen through 
the back entrance is, however, charming. It is the 
latest expression of the Teutonic desire to possess the 
most gorgeous hotels on the Continent, and it is just 
a little overdone. French grey is the colour of the 
liveries of the outdoor servants. The waiters in the 
restaurant press on Americans and Britons the carte 
(lu jour^ but there arc very good and cheap table cChote 
meals. Dejeuner s^ 3 marks ; dinners, 6 marks ; and 
suppers, 5 marks. The restaurant is all old gold and 
pink and white and green marble. The Kaiser took 
much interest in the building of this hotel, and in 
1907 paid M. Bodart, the chef, the compliment of 
visiting his kitchen. The Adlon has a grill-room in 
tlie Raffael-Saal, and its orchestra plays during and 
after dinner. 

The Bristol Hotel is an excellent place at which to 
take a mid-day meal. The lunch costs Bristol, Unter 
2.50 marks. Hors cTceuvre ?ixc i mark den Linden 
extra, and there is an extra charge for sweets. A 



222 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

table cThote dinner is served for 6 marks, and supper, 
after 9 p.m., costs 5 marks. The younger members 
of the British Embassy generally breakfast at the 
Bristol, and I invariably find that the restaurant in 
every capital to which the younger members of the 
British Embassy go for their mid-day meal, is sure to 
be one to be recommended to the traveUing Anglo- 
Saxon. 

I have nothing but good to say of the restaurant of 
the Palast Hotel. This is the hotel at which I made 

The Palast "^7 ^^^X when I went to Berlin, and 

Hotel, Pots- in its restaurant, with walls of grey, 

damerplatz ^^^ marble pillars and large windows, 

and ceiling with arabesques of gold on it, I ate 
many a good dinner. The dinner of the day at 5 
marks I invariably found quite satisfactory, and Herr 
Eduard Gutscher, the proprietor, gives the kitchen his 
personal superintendence. The following may be 
taken as a specimen of the usual dinner. There is 
also a very full a la carte card. 

Consomme Judith. 

Potage claire-Fontaine. 

Supreme de fogas a la Cecil. 

Sella de veau garnie a la Champigny. Sauce Tomate. 

. Cassolettes a la financiere. 

Caneton de Nantes. 

Salade. Compote. 

Choux fleurs, Sauce vierge. 

Riz a la Bizier. 

Patisserie. 

Paillettes. 

Fruits. 

The young princes, the sons of the Kaiser, often 
give their private dinner parties at the Palast. 

The restaurant of the Continental, managed by 



M. Klicks, a well-known restaurateur, is much fre- 
quented at supper-time. The charge continental, 
for supper is 4 marks, the lunch costs Neustadtiscke- 
3 marks, and the dinner 6 marks. kirchestrasse 

The restaurant of the Central Hotel is rather more 
lively than most of the others, and has a pleasant 
savour of Bohemianism. A good Hun- The Central, 
garian band always plays there during Friedrichstrasse 
the evening from 7.30 to 12.30. This restaurant is 
pleasanter to dine or sup at than to lunch at. The 
dinner costs 5 marks, and the supper 4 marks. 

The restaurant of the Savoycan be recommended, and 
the prices there are : lunch 2.50 marks. The Savoy, 
dinner 5 marks, supper 3.50 marks. Friedrichstrasse 

The Monopol room of the Hotel - Restaurant 
L'Schaurte is a pleasant dining place. Its prices are : 
lunch 2.50 marks, dinner 5 marks. The Monopol, 
supper 3.50 marks. I append an every- Friedrichstrasse 
day dinner menu which ought to satisfy the most 
exacting customer. The second soup is a Consomme, 
with quenelles. The fish dishes are Sole Normande 
and Turbot au Gratin. 

Haringsfilet nach Daube. 

Mulligatawny-Suppe. 

Kraftbriihe mit Einlage. 

Seezungenfilet auf normannische Art. 

Steinbutt in Miischeln gratiniert. 

Eng. Roast-beef. 

Yorker Schinken in Burgunder. 

Spinat. 

Homard de Norvege. Sauce Ravigotte. 

Franzos. Poularde. 

Fasan. 

Salat. Kompot. 

Sellerie. 

Furst Piickler Bombe. 

Kase. Friichte. 

Nachtisch. 



224 ^^'^^ Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

The above may be taken as a specimen of the 

5-mark dinner at any good Berlin restaurant. It used 

to be the custom at the Monopal to charge guests who 

drank no wine i mark extra for their dinner. I do 

not know whether this is still done. 

TT«4.-.-i A^ -D^^no The Hotel de Rome has an excellent 

Hotel de Kome, 

Unter den restaurant, and many dmners or cere- 

Linden mony are given there. 

The Astoria Restaurant attached to the Carlton 
Hotel in Unter den Linden has become a popular 
Astoria, Unter resort. Lunch- costs 2.50 marks, dinner 
den Linden ^ marks, supper 4 marks. The cooking 

at this restaurant is excellent, but the cellar does not 
merit unstinted praise. 

The Restaurants of the People 

Kempinski's in the Leipzigerstrasse is a huge 
establishment, with dozens of rooms in it. The 
Kempinski's, management will kindly give you a plan 
Leipziger- of the establishment as you enter, so 

strasse \.\\?iX. you can find your way about the 

different floors. Its window, looking out on to the 
Leipzigerstrasse, draws a crowd, for there always is 
something sensational, or something amusing on show 
there. The last time I saw it, a little lawn of grow- 
ing grass was there with everything laid for a picnic, 
and rabbits, stuffed ones, popping out of burrows and 
looking at the preparations. There was also a bottle — 
out of the bottle water poured — suspended by a chain. 
There were no visible means by which the water found 
its way into the bottle. There is much brass about the 
entrance to Kempinski's, and it has a red marble face 
for two storeys. It has lamps of ground glass, and 
it is very gorgeous both inside and outside. On the 
ground floor the principal room is of light wood, 
elaborately carved, with veined marble above it^ and 



'^Berlin 225 

has a vaulted roof. The first floor and the staircase 
leading to it are even more gorgeous than the ground 
floor. When Kempinski's was first built, it so de- 
lighted the Berliners that a song was made in its 
honour and sung in the music halls. Kempinski's is 
celebrated for its oysters, and for its excellent Holstein 
crayfish, and for its lobsters. The cook at this restau- 
rant has an excellent manner of cooking lobsters, 
Homard Chaud au Beurre Truffe, It consists of 
chopped truffles, worked up into best fresh butter, 
rolled out, and then laid on the hot lobster. My own 
experience of ordering a dinner at Kempinski's was 
not very happy. I took the longest dish I could find 
on the menu which had " Krebs " in it. What was 
brought me was a little metal dish with five depres- 
sions in it. In one of these was a little Tru'it eau bleuy 
in two others were the meat of crayfish, and in the 
remaining two were spinach with a baked sardine on 
the top of each heap of vegetable. It was a curious 
combination, and it decided me for the future to eat 
my trout without accessories of any kind. I ate, how- 
ever, an admirable crayfish salad, with eggs and points 
d^asperges and lettuce, which was decidedly better 
than the trout and baked sardine combination. Kem- 
pinski & Co. are wine merchants, and a vast amount 
of Kempinski's Grenz-Sect is drunk in the restaurant. 
As a rule, a portion of any dish on the bill of fare at 
Kempinski's costs i mark 25. As a proof that an 
excellent dinner is obtainable at Kempinski's for a 
small price, I subjoin a menu which was composed by 
a friend, who knew the ropes of the place, for a little 
feast to which'he'invited me. 

Hors d'oeuvre. 

Consomme double a la Moelle. 

Homard chaud au Beurre Truffe. 

Escaloppes de Veau. 



2 26 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

Choux de Bruxelles. 

Faisan Roti. 

Salade. 

Fromage, Celeri. 

Cafe, Cigare. 

I Bottle German Champagne. 

For two people, including the champagne, the total 
came to 12 marks 75 = 12s. gd. The German cham- 
pagne is not as bad as it is generally reported to be ; 
indeed, it is quite harmless, and rather pleasant. It 
is, however, rarely kept long enough in the cellars to 
give it a chance of maturing for the British taste. It 
has this advantage that it is what it pretends to be, 
whereas some of the bottles with French labels on 
them never saw Rheims. " Herb " does not guarantee 
what we in England understand by " Dry." 

The Rheingold in the Potsdamerstrasse looks from 
the outside like some great monastery, for it has very 
The Rheingold, high windows, which one might sup- 
Potsdamer- pose were built to give light to a chapel, 

strasse They give light instead to a great ban- 

queting hall. There are scores of different rooms in 
the Rheingold, decorated each in a diflferent manner. 
There are cellars with walls of Venetian inlay. There 
are rooms panelled with veined marble, and a great 
room on the ground floor which is of rare woods, 
lighted by what appear to be large candles, but which 
are really electric lamps, and there is a room of bas- 
reliefs, and another room with a ceiling of polished 
copper, and two vast halls, which would not be out 
of place in a palace. On the side which faces the 
Bellevuestrasse there is a garden, sheltered by trellis- 
work, where hundreds of little tables are set out, and 
there is another little garden in the centre of the build- 
ing. Two bands make music in this vast cluster of 
dining-rooms, which can seat 4000 people. People 
come and go quietly 5 the place is never empty and 



nernn 227 

never full. There is no noise and no hurry, for there 
is no early closing in Berlin, but from 6 p.m. till the 
early hours of the morning the waiters are kept busy. 
It is a wonderful place, and, apart from its being a 
dining and supping centre, is quite one of the sights of 
Berlin. 

Another wonder of rooms decorated in various 
styles is the Kaiser Keller in Friedrichstrasse, where 
one wanders from room to room, each Kaiser Keller, 178 
decorated after some well-known hall Friedrichstrasse 
'\n some German town. There is the Apostle Keller, 
with its carved figures of saints and elaborate dark 
woodwork, and there is a room where the ceiling 
is supported by a single column, and where the de- 
corations are of mediaeval saints painted on a gold 
background, and there is also a little garden where a 
fountain plays, and where palms give shelter to the 
tables. Another of the rooms is after the model of 
the Lubeck SchifFergesellschaft. 

Lovers of good wines should not miss the Restau- 
rant Lutter, at the corner of Charlotten and Franzc- 
sischestrasse. This is an historic old Letter 
tavern, which has been frequented by Franzo'sische- 
literary men and actors, as well as ^*^^^s® 
government officials, for the last hundred years. The 
walls are adorned with many interesting souvenirs 
of famous guests. Underneath the restaurant on 
the ground floor is a quaint old wine cellar. 

An inexpensive restaurant where the ^um Riides- 
simple German cookery is quite good, heimer, 178 
and where there is a fixed-price dinner Friedrichstrasse 
for 3J marks, is the Rudesheimer. Its owes its cele- 
brity to its excellent cellar of Rhine wines. 

The Trocadero, a magnificent new restaurant in 
Unter den Linden, is at present closed owing to the 
failure of its proprietor. 



22 8 T^he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 



Military Restaurants 

There are also two restaurants in which the mih- 
tary element predominates. These are 
Prinz Wilhelm, Toepfer's and the Prinz Wilhelm, both 
Dorotheen- in the Dorotheenstrasse. Here the 

officers usually lunch and use the res- 
taurants as clubs, often bringing their wives. 



Cafes, Cabarets, and Bars 

Bauer's in Unter den Linden is a well-known 
cafe, and is much frequented by the Berliners. It is 
Bauer's, Unter patronised by a large newspaper reading 
den Linden public, owing to the fact that there are 

few of the leading publications in all languages that 
you will fail to find there. This cafe is crowded in 
the afternoon and evening. Everything supplied there 
is of the best quality. The walls are decorated with 
paintings by Werner. Upstairs, between 5 and 6 p.m., 
one sees many of the people of the world of the 
theatres and music-halls. 

If you wish to see the rowdy student life of Berlin, 
the Bohemian festivity which corresponds to the life 
of Paris in the cabarets of Montmartre, and if you 
speak German, go to the Bauernschanke, which has 
obtained a celebrity for the violence and rudeness of 
its proprietor, who, as Lisbonne and Briiant used to 
do, and Alexander does, in the cabarets of the City 
of Light, insults his customers to the uttermost and 
turns out any one who objects. Die Rauberhole is 
an inferior imitation of Die Bauernschanke. 

A noted night restaurant is Der Zum Weissen 
Rossi, in which each room is decorated to represent 
some typical street in Berlin. This is a hostel much 
frequented by artists. 



'[Berlin 229 

The Open Air Restaurants 

There are two or three cafe restaurants with 

shady gardens in the Thiergarten, of which one, the 

Cafe Gartner, on the river close to the „ ^. „ ^ 
■P, ,, P> '. . , , Cafe Gartner 

isellevue station, is a pleasant place at 

which to drink afternoon coffee. The cafe and res- 
taurant in the Zoological Gardens are very popular. 
At either end of a little lake is a band-stand, and two 
military bands play alternately in these The Zoological 
band-stands during the late afternoon Gardens 
and evening. From band-stand to band-stand stretches 
a great semi-circle of tables for beer and coffee drinkers, 
and at the back of this half-moon of tables is a restau- 
rant with many terraces, where a fixed-price dinner is 
served from 6 p.m. onwards. When all the tables are 
occupied, as they are on fine afternoons and evenings, 
the mass of people eating and drinking and listening 
to the music is quite one of the sights of Berlin. 

Berlin Clubs 

One of the best clubs in Berlin is the Imperial 
German Automobile Club. The AutomoMle, 
Kaiser is a member and patron. The Leipzigerplatz 
club-house on the Leipzigerplatz was formerly the 
residence of the Berlin banker Bleichroeder, and is 
decorated in Louis XVI. style. The entrance fee is 
250 marks, the annual subscription 200 marks. There 
is a club dinner every Wednesday evening in the 
winter to which guests can be introduced. There is 
one long table in the centre room and smaller tables 
for parties. Ladies are admitted as guests on Sunday 
nights. Members of the Royal Automobile Club of 
London can become temporarv members of the Berlin 
Club. 



230 The Gourmefs Guide to' Europe 

One of the most exclusive clubs in Berlin is the 
Casino. The club-house is on the Pariserplatz. 
Casino, Pariser- The Kaiser is patron/)f this club. Most 
P^^*2 of the members are aristocrats or 

foreign diplomatists. No gambling games are al- 
lowed in this club. 

The Union Club in the Schadowstrasse is the 
Jockey Club of Germany. It is very exclusive, most 
Union, Schadow- of the members being aristocrats, but 
strasse some ^tw prominent financiers now 

belong to it. No gambling games are allowed in this 
club. The cookery at the Union is excellent. 

The " Club von Berlin," although not so exclusive, 
is one of the best clubs. The members belong to the 
better professional and commercial classes. It is 
interesting to lunch at this club between 12 and 2 
o'clock. 

Another good club is the "Resource von 1794." 
The members are mostly wealthy bankers and 
merchants. ; 

The "Club von 1880" is a good club. The 
members are mostly drawn from the wealthy com- 
mercial class. The club is quiet during the daytime 
but lively in the evening, and there is a good deal of 
card-playing. 

The Schriftsteller Club is interesting on Tuesday 
evenings when guests are admitted. Representatives 
of the leading German newspapers, mostly of conser- 
vative and imperial tendencies, with a good sprinkling 
of pan-Germans, can be met here. The atmosphere 
is distinctly Bohemian. 

There is no English club, 

AFTER DINNER 

The best advice I can give to any Anglo- 
Saxon is not to trouble to buv his theatre tickets 



^Berlin 231 

himself, but to depute that duty to the hall porter of 
the hotel. There is, however, an agency in Unter 
den Linden. Prices vary at some of the houses 
according to whether the production is an expensive 
one or a cheap one. A seat m a box by no means 
assures comfort. As often as not it is only by craning 
forward that one can see a corner of the stage. A 
gala night at the Opera is a fine sight, and worth 
paying a large sum to see. All the smaller theatres 
play comedy, or farce, or operetta. The Lessing is 
supposed to be a comedy theatre, but I heard The 
Dollar Princess sung there. The Metropol Theatre 
is supposed to be a variety theatre, but a musical 
comedy was, on the last occasion T was in Berlin, 
enjoying a run there of many hundred nights. The 
Winter Garden is a vast hall with a stage in one of its 
long side walls. Two big " wings " fold back when 
the curtain goes up so that people at the ends of the 
hall may see something of the performance. As is the 
usual German custom, many of the people in the 
auditorium sup during the performance. 



VIII 

ITALY 

Italian Cookery — The Italian Lakes — Turin — Milan — Genoa — 
Venice — Bologna — Spezzia — Florence — Pisa — Leghorn — 
Lucca — Rome — Clubs of Rome — Naples — Palermo. 

Italian Cookery 

There is no cookery in Europe so often maligned 
without cause as that of Italy. People who are not 
sure of their facts often dismiss it contemptuously as 
being "all garlic and oil," whereas very little oil is 
used except at Genoa, where oil, and very good oil 
as a rule, takes the place of butter, and no more garlic 
than is necessary to give a slight flavour to the dishes 
in which it plays a part. If you have any fear of the 
cook being too liberal with the best of all digestives 
you have only to say ^''Senz' aglio'''' (without garlic), and 
your wish will very surely be taken notice of. An 
Italian cook fries better than one of any other nation- 
ality. In the north very good meat is obtainable, the 
boiled beef of Turin being almost equal to our own 
Silverside. Farther and farther south, as the climate 
becomes hotter, the meat becomes less and less the 
food of the people, various dishes of paste and fish 
taking its place, and as a compensation the fruit and 
the wine become more delicious. 

Really good pure olive oil is almost unknown out- 
side the boundaries of Italy. An Italian gentleman 

never eats salad when travelling in foreign countries, 

232 



Italy 233 

for his palate, used to the finest oil, revolts against the 
liquid fit only for the lubrication of machinery he so 
often is offered in Germany, England, and France. 

The fowls and figs of Tuscany, the white truffles 
of Piedmont, the artichokes of Rome, the walnuts and 
grapes of Sorrento, might well stir a gourmet to poetic 
flights. 

The Italians are very fond of their Risotto^ the rice 
which they eat with various seasonings,, <? burro e for- 
maggio^ a sugo d'l pomodoro^ a sugo di carne^ the latter 
best suited to the robust British palate. The Italians, 
however, do not cook their rice to that point of 
softness to which we are accustomed. They also 
eat their Paste asc'iutte in various forms. It is Mac- 
tVztT^wi generally in 1^3.p\eSy Spaghetti in Rome, Trinetti 
in Genoa. Alia Sic'i liana and con Vongole are but two 
of the many ways of seasoning the Spaghetti. Again, 
the delicate little envelopes of paste containing force- 
meat of some kind or another change their names 
according to their contents and the town they are 
made in. They are Ravioli both at Genoa and Flor- 
ence, but at Bologna they Rve Tortolini, and at Turin 
Agnolotti. Perpadelle^ another paste dish with a little 
difference of seasoning, becomes Tettachine when the 
venue changes from Bologna to Rome. 

The egg is an important prima piatto at lunch {col- 
lazione). In the egg da here the chill is just taken ofl 
it, and it is drunk out of the shell — not a pleasant 
operation either to see or to hear. The open egg — 
uove aperte — is a safe thing in remote districts, being 
two eggs fried and served up in the enamelled metal 
dish in which they are cooked. Be careful to ask for 
them a hurro^ otherwise you may get them done m 
oil. Fried or poached eggs, a salso di pomodoro (with 
tomato sauce), are distinctly tasty. Then there is 
every variety of stuffed egg {iiove ripiene\ those with 
a basis of anchovy and parsley being the most savoury. 



2 34 ^/^^ Gourmet's Guide to Bur ope 

Uove in canape^ eggs in a deep encasement of fried 
bread, are satisfying enough to form a pike de resist- 
ance; while eggs powdered with white truffles are a 
veritable delicacy. 

The fish of the Mediterranean are coarse and poor, 
compared with the glorious fish of the Channel. But 
thanks to the culinary art the traveller who likes a 
change of cookery can do himself pretty well, though 
the resident gourmet may grumble. For that great 
delicacy, the fresh herring, you must put up with 
the cured article from Yarmouth, which comes to 
Italy in extraordinarily large quantities, for the Italians 
are great lovers of cured fish. So for the lovely cod of 
the North Sea, you must be content with cured New- 
foundland and "Shore" fish {haccala\ or with stock- 
fish from Norway. But the haccala the Italians really 
cook in many appetising ways. The monarch of 
Mediterranean fish is the Dentice (Fr. Dentale\ and 
a fillet of fresh tunny with stewed peas may well 
take the place of a beefsteak on Fridays without grave 
hardship. Oysters are cheap in Italy, a penny a 
piece. Very tempting shell-fish are the Tartufe di 
mare (truffles of the deep), as costly as oysters in 
England, good eating, but it must be added, very 
indigestible. 

There are many minor differences in the com- 
ponents of similarly named dishes at different towns ; 
the Minestrone of Milan and Genoa differ, and so does 
the Fritto Mtsto of Rome and Turin. I fancy that, 
as a compensation, only an expert could tell the dif- 
ference between the soups di Vongole at Naples, di 
Dattero at Spezzia, and di Peoci at Venice. 

The Zabajone^ the sweet, frothing drink beaten up 
with eggs and sugar, is made differently in different 
towns. At Milan and Turin Marsala and brandy 
are used in it ; at Venice Cyprus wine is the founda- 
tion ; and elsewhere three wines are used. It is a 



Italy 235 

splendidly sustaining drink, whether drunk hot or 
iced ; Italian doctors order it in cases of depression, 
and it might well find a place in the household 
recipes of English and American households. The 
wines of the various towns I have noted in writing 
of them. Vino nostrano or del paese brings from the 
waiter his list of the local juice of the grape, and 
the wine of the district is the wine to drink. Roughly 
speaking, the red wine is the best throughout Italy ; the 
white of Bologna ; of Umbria, especially of Orvieto ; 
and the Veneto being the exceptions. Finally, do 
not be alarmed if at a trattoria a waiter puts before 
you a huge flask of wine. It has been weighed before 
it is brought to you. It will be weighed when the 
w^aiter takes it away after you have finished, and what 
you have drunk, plus the great gulp the waiter is sure 
to take if he gets a chance, is what you will be charged 
for. 

The Italian Lakes 

The huge modern hotels which have risen at all 
the beauty spots of the Italian lakes have by no means 
made this beautiful tract of country a gourmet's para- 
dise, and the shabby old Italian inns and taverns all 
seem to have grown shabbier in contrast to their much- 
decorated monster neighbours, where the cookery is 
French and the food has no national characteristics. 
There is plenty of excellent fish in the lakes and ex- 
cellent game in the forests and on the hills. Chamois, 
gemsbok, black game, hill partridge, and hares are shot 
in considerable quantities on the mountains of Lom- 
bardy, and woodcock and snipe in the plains. The 
chestnuts and walnuts of Civenna are said to be the 
best in Italy. On the slopes of Tremezzo and Cad- 
denabia sub - tropical fruits ripen, and strawberries, 
peaches, and nectarines grow in abundance ; and on 
the hills about the Lake of Orta most of the fruits we 



236 T^he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

grow in hot-houses ripen luxuriantly in the open air. 
The eels of Pesciera have been celebrated ever since 
the days of the Caesars ; and in the Lake of Como 
are trout some of w^hich weigh as much as 20 lbs. 
The Agon'i^ a very delicate little fish peculiar to the 
Lombard lakes, are more delicate of flavour when they 
come from the Lake of Como than when they are 
caught elsewhere. I have been well fed at the old 
convent turned into an hotel, the Hotel du Pare at 
Lugano, and for the Grande Bretagne at Bellagio and 
the Hotel Excelsior at Varese I have nothing but 
praise ; but I have never found in the towns of the 
lake districts those comfortable, well-kept restaurants, 
with a purely Italian cuisine, which abound in the big 
cities of the country. 

Turin 

You will be fed well enough at your hotel whether 
you are at the Grand, or Kraft's, or the Trombetta ; 
but if you want to test the cookery of the town I 
should suggest a visit to the Ristorante del Cambio, 
which is in the Piazza Carignano, where stands, a 
marble statue of a philosopher, and which has a couple 
of palaces as close neighbours ; or to the Lagrange and 
Nazionale, both of which are in the Via Lagrange. 
Delia Meridiana, Or best of all, perhaps, go to the Ris- 
Via Santa torante della Meridiana, which is in the 

Theresa yj^ Santa Theresa. The proprietor, 

who is a mine of knowledge on all subjects regarding 
Turin, will serve at request not only the dishes of 
Lombardy, which he cooks admirably, but all the 
southern dishes as well. The Barolo Vecchio of the 
house, generally only brought to your notice when 
you have established yourself as a regular patron, is 
well worth asking for on the earliest opportunity. 
The prices of the Meridiana are quite moderate. 



Italy 237 

If you, wherever you happen to dine, wish to com- 
mence with hors (Tceuvre^ try the Pepperoniy which are 
large yellow or red chillies preserved in pressed grapes 
and served with oil and vinegar, salt and pepper. The 
Grissini, the little thin sticks of bread which are made 
in Turin and are famous for their digestible quality, will 
be by your plate. Next I should suggest the Busecca^ 
though it is rather satisfying, being a thick soup of 
tripe and vegetables ; and then must come a great 
delicacy, the trout from the Mont Cenis Lake. For 
a meat course, if the boiled beef of the place, always 
excellent, is too serious an undertaking, or if the 
Frittura Mista is too light, let me recommend the 
Rognone Trifolato^ veal kidney stewed in butter with 
tomatoes and other good things, including a little 
Marsala wine. The white Piedmontese truffles served 
as a salad, or with a hot sauce, must on no account 
be overlooked ; nor the Cardons^ the white thistle, 
served with the same sauce ; nor, indeed, the Zucchini 
Ripieni, which are stuffed pvimpkins ; and some Fo?i- 
duta^ the cheese of the country, melted in butter and 
eggs and sprinkled with white truffles, will form a 
fitting end to your repast unless you feel inclined 
for the biscuits of Novara, or Gianduiotti^ which are 
chocolates or nougat from Alba or Cremona, where 
they make violins as well as sweets. You should 
drink the wine of the country, Barbera or Barolo, 
Nebiolo or Freisa ; and I expect, if you really perse- 
vere through half the dishes I have indicated, that 
you will be glad of a glass of Moscato with the fruit. 
Take your coffee at the Cafe Romano if you long for 
" local colour." 

Milan 

In Milan, the town of white marble and veal cutlets, 
most of the restaurants of any note are in or near the 



238 The Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

great arcade, that wonderful covered promenade in 
which an interesting crowd — the Bersaglieri officers, 
with flowing plumes of cocks' feathers in their hats, 
the cavalry men, with their helmets of the old Roman 
shape, the pretty ladies, and peasants from the moun- 
tains, wondering at all they see — goes backwards and 
forwards. The Savigni and the Biffi face each other 
on either side of one of the passages which run out 
Savigni, Galleria from the central circle. The Savigni, 
Vittorio Emanuele \{ one judges from the constant flow of 
patrons which go in and out of its doors, is the most 
popular of all the restaurants in Milan. At 8 o'clock 
in the evening there is rarely a seat vacant there. 
The bustle of the place is a little surprising to any 
stranger who has come from a northern country, for 
a fire or a revolution could not excite the waiters more 
than their Ordinary duties do. A baked fowl and 
potatoes, a dish of the day, is suddenly thrust under 
one's nose, or a rich cake is placed on the table, or the 
comprehensive bill of fare is thrown down as if it was 
a challenge to a duel. There is a table always kept 
for the officers of the garrison, of whom the Artillery 
seem to be the principal patrons of the Savigni. A 
pretty girl brings a basket of flowers, ofl^ering the 
blossoms for sale. A man with a stubbly head of hair 
comes round with a great sheaf of the Sera newspaper, 
and cigarettes and post-cards are all offered as one eats 
one's meal. There are two or three dishes of the day, 
and 1. 1.20 is the usual price for each dish. Grated 
Parmesan, the cheese being one of the products of the 
locality, is offered with all soups, and with many of 
the more solid dishes as well. The last time I dined 
at Savigni's I ate one of the local soups, of sage and 
rice and the Italian paste with a sprinkling, of course, 
of Parmesan, a frittura of brains, some Gorgonzola, 
some fruit, and drank half a bottle of Capri Bianco, 
and my bill was 1. 4.50, 



Italy 239 

The Biffi is a larger establishment than the Savigni ; 
its front part is a cafe in which a band plays in the 
evening, and the back part is the res- Biffi, Biffi 
taurant, where the food is much the GaUeria 
same as at the Savigni. There are tables outside the 
Biffi, and as in the evening the curtains are tightly 
drawn at all restaurants, it is not a bad plan to eat 
one's dinner in the Savigni, and to take one's coffee 
afterwards in purer air outside the Biffi. 

The Cova, next door to the Scala, never seems to 
have had its front repainted, and it is grey in appear- 
ance, with pillars on its front. The cova, Via 
portion of the establishment facing the Giuseppe Verdi 
road consists of a pastry-cook's shop and tea-rooms, 
the hinder part is the restaurant. It has a courtyard 
which forms a garden, where in the summer a band 
plays, and where one can sit after dinner or can dine 
in hot weather. 

The Orlogio, just behind the cathedral, is apt to be 
stuffy on hot evenings, but I have found it in cool 
weather always a pleasant restaurant at orlogio, Piazza 
which to dine, though I am bound to del Campo Santo 
say that my opinion in this does not coincide with 
that of all other men. 

The Gambrinus has absorbed almost all one side 
of the cross at the centre of the big arcade, and many 
people eat their simple evening meal there, though it 
only claims to be a " brasserie," not a restaurant. 

There is a comparatively new restaurant and 
birreria in the big square on the opposite side of it 
to the Cathedral. This is the Casanova, casanova 
which looks clean and bright with its Piazza dei 
nouveau art decorations, its galleries ^^^Po Santo 
and its chairs and tables of light coloured wood. A 
band apparently plays all day long in the musicians' 
gallery, for I have never passed there without hearing 
music inside, and I have found the simple food there 



240 'The Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

to be cheap and well cooked. It is, I should think, 
a dangerous rival to the Gambrinus. 

I am told that I should include the De Albertis and 
the Isola Botta in my list of the restaurants of Milan, 
but I have never seen or been into either of these two 
dining places, and therefore can say nothing either 
good or bad about them. Wherever one dines and 
wherever one breakfasts there are certain Milanese 
dishes which one should order. The Minestrone 
soup is a dish which is not only found all over Italy 
but which is popular in Austria and on the French 
Riviera as well ; but the Minestrone alia Milanese^ 
with its wealth of vegetables and suspicion of Par- 
mesan, is especially excellent. The Risotto Milanese^ 
rice slightly saute in butter, then boiled in capon 
broth, and finally seasoned with Parmesan and saffron, 
is one of the celebrated Milanese dishes, but the 
simpler methods of serving Risotto^ al sugo^ al hurro^ or 
con fegatini suit better those who do not like saffron. 
Better still is a very well known dish of another 
town, Risotto Certosino, in which the rice is seasoned 
with a sauce of crayfish and garnished with their tails. 
Then come the various manners of cooking veal, the 
Cotelette a la Milanese^ cutlets plunged in beaten eggs 
and fried in butter after being crumbed, and others 
stewed with a little red wine and flavoured with 
rosemary ; and the Cotelette alia MarsigUese^ of batter, 
then ham, then meat which, when fried, is one of the 
dishes of the populace on a feast day. Ossobuco^ a shin 
of veal cut into slices and stewed with a flavouring of 
lemon rind, is another veal dish ; and so is the delicate 
Fritto Picatto of calf's brains, liver, and tiny slices of 
flesh. Polpette a la Milanese are forcemeat balls stewed. 
Panettone are the cakes of the city and are much eaten 
at Carnival time. Stracchino or Crescenza is a cheese 
much like the French Brie. Gorgonzola all the world 
knows well ; and though Parmesan takes its name from 



Italy 241 

that Duchess of Parma who introduced it into France, 
the best quality comes from Lodi, near Milan. Val 
Policella and Valle d'Inferno are the wines to drink. 



AFTER DINNER 

The Scala is a huge barn of a theatre, and is only 
open for performances in the winter. It is regarded 
as one of the sights of the town, and is shown as such 
in the daytime. Nearly every tourist stands on the 
stage and tries his or her voice to see how it sounds in 
the vast space. A ballet at the Scala is always worth 
seeing, for in it the full depth of the enormous stage 
is always used. When the Scala is closed opera is 
always sung at one of the smaller theatres. The best 
comedians in Italy all have a liking for the Manzoni, 
and there is generally a very good performance there. 
The largest of the variety theatres is the Eden, in the 
Via Cairoli, near the castle. 



Genoa 

Genoa is a town of noise and bustle. The worst 
curse one Genoese can pronounce on another is " May 
the grass grow before your door." The special note 
of the Genoese cuisine is the use of oil instead of 
butter in most of its dishes. The Genoese restaurants 
have not the best reputation either for cleanliness or 
quiet, and any Englishman or American Bristol Hotel 
staying at Bertolini's Bristol Hotel need Via Ventiset- 
not think that he has lost any delights ^®™^^® 
by dining at home in the hotel restaurant, where the 
1. 7 table cVhote is a better set meal than any I found in 
any of my explorations in the hostelries of the city. 

To any one who wishes to dine abroad I should 
recommend the Cafe Roma, one entrance to which 



242 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

is in the Via Roma, and the other in the Great 
Gallery. The Roma is both a cafe and a restaurant. 
Cafe Roma, It is quite smart in its decorations, clean 

Great Gallery and well furnished, and its dinner of 
the day is rather more pretentious as well as more 
expensive than those of the ordinary restaurants of the 
town. Its cost is 1. 5. This is a menu of an ordinary 
dinner of the day on one of the nights I dined there. 

Consomme Re Edouard. 

Orate Montmorency. 

Dindoneau en Capitolodad. 

Cavolfiori Polonese. 

Gigot de Moutone. 

Insalata. 

Dolce. 

Dessert. 

Other restaurants in the Galleria Mazzini are the 
Cervisia, which has a front of grey marble, has brilliant 
white walls inside, and blazes with electric light both 
outside and in. It has a little roof garden, up to which 
I did not ascend. I found a rather noisy company in 
the big room of the restaurant, and the atmosphere 
was not of the best, but both the 2.50 lira lunch and 
the 1. 3.50 dinner are abundant, and quite good for the 
price. 

The Cafe Milano is another hirrer'ia ristorante in 
the Great Gallery very much on the same lines as the 
Cervisia, but not so bright. A third restaurant and 
brasserie in this Great Gallery is the Ristorante della 
Posta, which is just opposite the Post Office. I passed 
it one warm morning at 10 a.m., and saw that every 
window of its dining-rooms was tightly closed. That 
I considered quite sufficient evidence as to the atmos- 
phere I was likely to find inside, and I did not further 
investigate. 

Of the restaurants in the Via Venti Settembre, the 



Italy 243 

Cairo is the cleanest and brightest. Two large rooms 
and a small room run back from the street. There 
is an abundance of electric light, and cairo, Via Venti 
the marble floor of black and white Settembre 
chequers gives a sense of coolness. The outside deco- 
ration of the house also is quite bright, and in good 
keeping. It has the meals of the day, and a lunch I 
ate there, a la carte, in which a fry of red mullet and 
a saute of fowl were the principal dishes, was both 
well cooked and cheap. 

The Bavaria, at the corner of the Via Venti Set- 
tembre and the Piazza, is a birreria first Bavaria 
and a restaurant in the second place. Via Venti 
Its great recommendation is the loftiness Settembre 
of its big room, the ceiling of which is supported by 
big pillars of brown marble. 

The restaurant in the Teatro Carlo Felice did not 
look tempting enough to induce me to experiment on 
its food. 

The two restaurants in the Via Carlo Felice are 
the oldest established in the town. The Labo, 7 Via 
Labo consists of low-ceilinged little Carlo Felice 
rooms on the ground floor, the front room having 
in its ceiling a small round saucer-like indent to give 
the idea of a cupola. Its floor is of black and white 
marble. Its chairs are of Austrian bent wood. It 
serves set meals — lunches, 1. 2 and 1. 2.50, and dinners, 
1. 3 and 1. 3.50. 

The Gottardo, on the opposite side of the road to 
the Labo, has the usual series of little rooms on the 
first floor. At either of these two res- Gottardo, 6 Via 
taurants one can experiment on the real Carlo Felice 
oily cookery of Genoa in a real Genoese atmosphere. 

At the Gambrinus, Via San Sebastiano, cold meats 
of all kinds are kept ready for those who Gambrinus, Via 
choose to sup there, as well as drink San Sebastiano 
their Munich beer. 



244 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

In hot weather the Giardino Italia, in the Piazza 
Corvette, is the pleasantest place at which to dine, for 
Giardino Italia, it has a large outdoor garden, where the 
Piazza Corvetto simple food of the restaurant can be 
served. There are big trees in this garden, and orange 
trees with the fruit on them, and two fountains supply 
the tinkle of falling water, a band plays in the band- 
stand, and from table to table go the flower-sellers and 
the newspaper-sellers, and a man who cuts out sil- 
houettes in black paper, and the post-card sellers. 
On an autumn or spring evening the Giardino is a 
pleasant place in which to dine, for the company is 
a merry one. For colder weather it has a great hall 
decorated in the Pompeiian manner, and two great 
wings, mostly of glass, which almost embrace the 
whole of the garden. 

Genoa has its own especial Minestrone soup flavoured 
with Pesto^ a paste in which pounded basil, garlic, 
Sardinia cheese, and olive oil are used ; and the fish 
dishes are Stocafissso alia Genovese, stock-fish stewed 
with tomatoes, and sometimes with potatoes as well, 
and a fry of red mullet, and Moscardini^ which are 
cuttle-fish, oblong in shape and redolent of musk. 
The tripe of Genoa is as celebrated as that of Caen, 
and the V'ltello Uccelletto^ little squares of veal saute 
with fresh tomatoes in oil and red wine, is a very 
favourite dish. The Ravioli I have already written of. 
The Faina somewhat resembles Yorkshire pudding 
made with pease powder and oil. Funghi a Fungetto 
are the wild red mushrooms stewed in oil with thyme 
and tomatoes, and Meiza7ine is a small, bitter egg- 
plant, only found on the Riviera, stuffed with a cheese 
paste and then fried. Pasqualina is an Easter pie. 
The figs of Genoa are excellent. The wines are 
those delle cinque terre^ and in some of the cellars you 
will find them dating back sixty years or more. 



Italy 245 

AFTER DINNER 

As in all the other large Italian towns the principal 
Opera House, the Carlo Felice, is only open in the 
winter months. The music hall in the Via Venti 
Settembre, the Verdi, though its entrance is not pre- 
possessing, generally has a very good programme. In 
the summer it is more pleasant to listen to the band of 
an evening in the Aquasola Park than to go to any of 
the stuffy minor theatres. 

Venice 

From the sunlight and the fluster of the grey wings 
of the doves in the Piazza San Marco a narrow dark 
passage takes you to the all white rooms cappelo Nero, 
of the Cappelo Nero, the best known of Merceria 
the Venetian restaurants since the Quadri has ceased 
to be a restaurant, and only remains a cafe. Over this 
lapse of the Quadri I must be permitted to shed a tear, 
and to hope that the old maftre cVhotel^ who had the 
manners of an ambassador, and who assisted one to 
order a typical Venetian breakfast with the utmost 
delicacy, is leading somewhere a pleasant life of retire- 
ment. To return to the Cappelo Nero, it can trace 
its history back to 1376, and in 1483 a Turkish 
naval captain, who lived there, wrote in its praise. 
In the old comic opera, Crispino e la Comare^ the 
bass is given an air in praise of the good things to 
be obtained at the Cappelo. Its principal entrance 
is in the Merceria, that bustling street which is the 
main artery on land of Venice. It is an hotel as well 
as a restaurant, and Garibaldi slept there when he 
visited Venice after the war of liberation. The bed 
xn which he slept is religiously preserved as an historic 
relic. The main room of the Cappelo on the Mer- 
ceria side is really tastefully decorated in creams and 
light colours, its mirrors are in carved frames, and 



246 T^he Gourmet' s Guide to Europe 

there is something of a Parisian touch about this part 
of the restaurant. Behind are other rooms all white. 
Nowhere in Venice can you taste the scampi^ prawns 
three times the size of British ones, fried to greater 
perfection, each one of them forming a delicious 
mouthful. And nowhere in Venice are the octopi, 
one of the standing dishes of the town, better cooked. 
Their tentacles are so tender that they seem to melt 
in the mouth, and, if their bodies are a little tough, 
there is no more need to eat an octopus' body in 
Venice than there is to eat the beard of an oyster in 
England. Some of the waiters at the Cappelo can 
speak French. The lunch of the day is at two prices, 
1. 2.50 and 3.50, and there are dinners at 1. 4 and 5. 
The card of the day is mostly printed, and therefore 
it is not so difficult to order a simple meal as it is 
when the paper thrust before one is a confused mass 
of scribbles in violet ink. I have lunched there on 
maccaroni, with tomato sauce and Parmesan, and 
scampi^ which is always the most expensive dish on 
the bill of fare, on Lodigiano cheese, honeycombed 
and tasting like old Cheshire, on half a flask of Chianti, 
and some fruit, and my bill came to about four shil- 
lings. The very old Chianti at 1. 4.50 a bottle is a 
splendid wine, and the Conegliano at this restaurant 
is to be highly recommended. Signor Cesare Novati 
is the proprietor and manager of the Cappelo Nero. 

The Cavaletto, a white building on a canal close to 
the Ponte Cavaletto, can be reached by water, and it 
Cavaletto, is pleasant to swing from under the 

Ponte Cavaletto bridge, and to be steered by a sweep of 
the gondolier's oar up to the marble steps with their 
brass rail, which lead to one of the entrances into the 
restaurant. The other entrance is from a narrow 
alley. There are two large rooms in the Cavaletto, 
with the entrance to the hotel between them. The 
biggest of these rooms, low-ceilinged and supported by 



Italy 247 

little pillars, is decorated in cream and light green. 
The place is quite Venetian without being Venetian 
to excess. There is always a bustle in the big room, 
and the little boys who serve the wine scuttle about 
like lamplighters. The lunch of the day, of fish, 
meat, a paste dish, cheese, and fruit, costs 1. 2.50, and 
an ample dinner is provided at 1. 3.50. A lunch of 
fried cuttle-fish, a Venetian dish of a big veal cutlet 
and rice, some cheese, half a bottle of red Val Policella, 
with a little effervescence in it, and a half bottle of 
Nocera table water, and my bill for this was 1. 4.50, 
the expensive item being the wine. 

Going down the Merceria, an arrow painted on a 
wall directs you the way to go to the Vapore, a very 
distinctively Venetian restaurant, by the vapore, Ponte 
Ponte Pignole. It can also be reached Pignole 
by water, but I have always found my way to it by 
the narrow alleys with the help of arrows on the 
walls. As one sits in the farthest room close to the 
three windows, which are generally kept hermetically 
shut, the reflection of light from the water of the 
canal dances on the ceiling, and the passing gondoliers 
look in over the little blinds and envy the people who 
sit at lunch or dinner. There are three rooms in the 
Vapore, all yellow and brown in their decorations, and 
one of these has a skylight as a means of giving light 
and a certain amount of ventilation to it. There are 
ventilators in the other rooms, which, when the smoke 
gets dense, are opened, and a current of fresh air comes 
into the rooms. The cooking at the Vapore is de- 
cidedly good, and distinctly Venetian and cheap. 
Pasticci di Macheroni^ Capretti^ scrambled eggs and 
tomatoes are some of its specialties. A lunch I 
ordered there consisted of a frittura of all kinds of 
little fishy gropetti romana (veal with a rich sauce), Gor- 
gonzola cheese, and a half bottle of the white wine 
of the house — for the ordinario, both red and white, 



248 T/z^ Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

of the Vapore are sound wines — and my bill came to 
1. 2.90. 

The Panada, in the Calle del Specciehri, a cut-throat- 
looking alley which leads off from the Calle Larga San 
Panada, Calle Marco, is a stuffy place in hot weather, 
del Specciehri but the cookery is quite good. It is 
very busy at lunch time, for many of the business 
men of the busiest quarter of Venice go there for 
their mid-day meal. 

The Bella Venezia is a large, very plainly decorated 
restaurant close to the Goldoni Theatre, but its cookery 
calls for no special comment. 

The Bauer Grunwald, Via Ventidue Marzo, can 
scarcely be called a Venetian restaurant, for all its 
attractions are German ones. It has tw^o gardens. 
One with plenty of trees, and with a miniature statue 
of Liberty — a reduced copy of the New York one — 
faces the Grand Canal, the other, a smaller garden, is 
on the street side. It has high rooms, German decora- 
tions, a supply of papers of all nations, and a specialty 
of Munich beer. 

The Pilsen, at the north-west corner of the Piazza 
San Marco, has a garden protected by a canvas roof, 
Pilsen, Piazza and walls of green trellis with creepers 
San Marco growing over them, and a hedge of 

privet which prevents passers-by from looking in. It 
is pleasant enough in summer time, but in winter 
time, when the meals are served in a low-ceilinged 
room, the atmosphere leaves much to be desired. 

The Quadri, on the north side of the great square, 

and the Florian on the south side, are the two best 

known cafes of Venice. The Quadri used 

to be a restaurant, but the last two times I 

have been in Venice I have found that it was only 

doing a very flourishing business as a cafe. 

The Florian keeps open all night through in the 
summer, and various reasons are given for this beside 



Italy 249 

the very obvious one that the Venetians stroll about in 
the hottest weather all night long, one of these reasons 
being that during the Austrian occupa- . 

tion some young officers, finding the 
Florian closed, tore down the shutters and flung them 
into the Grand Canal, and that to keep this injury 
green the Florian kept open ever afterwards. 

The Lavena, in the great square, is the most 
popular of all the tea-rooms and confectioners, and in 
the summer the little tables before it stretch over a 
great space. 

Ortez, in the Via Ventidue Marzo, is another 
popular tea-room. 

The Zuppa di Peoci is a soup made from the little 
shell-fish called "peoci" in Venice, but appearing 
under other names at Spezzia and Naples ; and so fond 
are the Venetians of it that they flavour their rice 
with sauce made from it, and call it Riso cot peoci. 
Baccala^ or salt cod, and Calama'i^ little cuttle-fish or 
octopi, looking and tasting like fried strips of soft 
leather, with tentacles which are delicious, are dishes 
of the people, and not to every one's taste ; but the 
Angu'ille di Comacchio^ the great eels from Comacchio, 
grilled on the spit between bay leaves, or fried or 
stewed, are excellent, and to be thoroughly recom- 
mended. Another Venetian dish which I can strongly 
recommend is the Fegato alia Vene^iana^ calf's liver 
cut into thin slices, fried with onions in butter, and 
flavoured with lemon juice. The Frittura Mista of 
the town is excellent. Stewed larks, with a pudding 
of Veronese flour, are satisfying, and a sausage from 
the neighbouring Treviso, which also gives its name 
to the Radici di Treviso^ is much esteemed. The 
Pucca baruca is one of the big yellow pumpkins baked. 
The wines are, of course, those of the mainland, 
Conegliano from Treviso and Val Policella from 
Verona. 



250 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 



AFTER DINNER 

During the hot weather the after-dinner hour is the 
time at which people go to see their friends. The 
Fenice, the big opera house, has never been open on 
any of the occasions I have been in Venice, but I 
believe that performances are given there during the 
week of the Carnival. At the Rossini opera is gene- 
rally being sung, and the Venetians have a partiality 
for the old works of Italian composers which one can 
only hear nov/adays in the provincial Italian cities. 
At the Goldoni, comedies are generally played, and 
the Malibran, which is the theatre beloved by the 
gondoliers, generally has a tremendous melodrama as 
its attraction. When the performances of the mario- 
nette theatres are in progress it is well worth going 
into the little theatre in the Ventidue Marzo, if only 
to watch the audience. There are small boys in great 
numbers who seem to spend all their time in attend- 
ing these performances, and keep up a running fire of 
comment during the dramas and ballets and variety 
performances of the jerky little dolls. 



Bologna 

"Bologna la grazza " does not belie its nickname, 
and it is said that the matronly ladies, all over forty. 
Hotel Brun ^^^ cook for the rotund priests of the 

Palazzo Mai- town, are the cordons bleus of Italy. 
^^^^^ The restaurant of the Hotel Brun is 

the one where the passing Anglo-Saxon generally takes 
his meals, and a chat with the proprietor, Mr. J. F. 
Frank, is entertaining, for he owns vineyards behind 
the town, which he is happy to show to any one 
interested in vine culture, and he makes his wine 
after the French manner. The wines made by 



Italy 251 

Frank are Bologna, Saugiovese, Pinot, Cabernet, 
Trebbiano, White Pinot, Paradiso, Sauvignon, and 
Sweet Malvasia. The Hotel d'ltalie is more an Italian 
house, and the Stella d'ltalia, in the Stella d" Italia, 
Via Rizzoli, is the typical popular res- ^ Via Rizzoli 
taurant of the town. At the Albergo Roma, on the 
Via d'Azeglio, I have lunched on good food for a 
couple of francs. At the Belletti, a birreria outside 
the Porta Azeglio, one can obtain a meal in the 
open air. 

The Coppaletti I have already referred to. The 
Perpadelle col Ragout are made of the same dough 
as the French nouilles^ in narrow strips, boiled and 
seasoned with minced meat and Parmesan cheese. 
Another variety of this, Perpadelle alia Bolognese^ has 
minced ham as a seasoning. Then come the far- 
famed sausages, the great Codeghino^ boiled and served 
with spinach or mashed potatoes ; the large, ball- 
shaped Mortadella^ which is sometimes eaten raw ; 
and the stuffed foreleg of a pig, which is boiled and 
served with spinach and mashed potatoes, and which 
is a dish the Bolognese " conveyed '* from Verona. 

If you thirst for cool clear beer, drink the local 
Ronzano, and see if it does not remind you of the 
Pilsener Urquell. 

Spezzia 

Not at Spezzia itself, but at Porto Venere on the 
promontory at the entrance to the bay, will the gour- 
met find the Zuppa di Datteri, which is the great 
delicacy of the gulf. The dattero is a shell-fish which 
in shape resembles a date stone. It has a very delicate 
taste, and is eaten stewed with tomatoes and served 
with a layer of toast. The little inn, Del Genio, is 
not too clean, but the landlord will tell you wonderful 
tales of Byron and Shelley, the former of whom never 
really visited Porto Venere, though local tradition has 



252 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

it that he wrote his Corsair in a grotto near the 
shore. The Croce di Malta is a harbour of refuge 
if one is not too particular. 



Florence 



The aristocratic restaurants of Florence are both in 
the Via Tornabuoni. They are those of Doney et 
Nipote and of Giacosa. They are on opposite sides 
of the road, both have white marble fronts up to the 
first floor, both have highly gilt lamps, both are pastry- 
cooks and tea-shops, both have rooms where the 
young bloods of the town drink a glass of Marsala or 
of Zeres, or of Vermouth, and the restaurant of both 
is on the first floor. When I was last in Florence the 
Giacosa, Via front rooms of the Giacosa were being 
Tornabuoni redecorated, and looked as though they 

would be very bright and pleasant, and the business of 
the restaurant was for the time being carried on in the 
back premises. Bono is the successor to the founder 
of Giacosa's, but the old name still remains in large 
letters over the shop. 

Doney's was, however, in full swing. The polite 
man who stands at the door leading in from the street 
Doney's, Via takes off his hat to any customer, as 
Tornabuoni though that customer were a prince of 

the royal blood. A little flattered by the obeisance, 
one goes upstairs, where one has a choice of two 
dining-rooms in which to take a meal. One has its 
walls adorned with paintings, and the other has a 
paper of dead gold with a pattern on it in bright gold. 
Everything at Doney's is just a trifle too gorgeous, 
and the decorations are a little overdone. An old 
waiter, bald-headed, with two great wisps of grey hair 
brushed up on either side of his head, and with a good- 
natured, fat face, acts as usher, and presents one with 
some ceremony to the mattre cThotel, When last I 



% 



Italy 253 

h,ad experience of Doney's the maitre cChotel was one 
who spoke excellent French, but who showed that 
individuality which is a trait of the typical Italian 
waiter by wearing a silk dress-coat and by having 
postponed his shave till the evening. The carte de 
jour of Doney's, as also of Giacosa's, is that of a good 
French restaurant. R'l'z P'ledmontese was the only 
Italian dish I found in the ample breakfast of the day 
when last I lunched at Doney's, but the meal was an 
excellent one, and its price was 1. 4.50. The price of 
the dinner of the day, which is served between six 
and nine, is 1. 6. The people who go to Doney's and 
to Giacosa's are all very commc 11 fauty and the old 
gentlemen who lunch at Doney's are as well groomed 
and as particular concerning what they eat and drink 
as are the veterans who frequent the Cafe Anglais in 
Paris. Doney et Nipote are also the lessees of the 
little pavilion by the gate leading into the Cascine. 

Melini's, in the Via de' Calzaioli, is probably the 
most popular of all the restaurants of Florence. The 
first impression of the house one ob- Melini's, Via 
tains is of spotless cleanliness, for it is ^® Calzaioli 
all white and gold outside. One of its windows is 
generally filled with silver-foiled bottles of Italian 
champagne and flasks of Chianti, with a cake or two 
in the background to remind passers-by that Melini's 
is a pastry-cook's as well as a wine merchant's store 
and a restaurant. On entering, on one side is a long 
counter with the usual bottles of wine and liqueurs at 
one end of it. Going through the shop, which is 
also a room of the restaurant, one enters the first of 
three other rooms which run the full depth of the 
block of buildings. The first room of the suite is the 
favourite one, for the windows look out on to the 
Via de' Calzaioli. The big room at the back, the 
windows of which look on to another street, ^omes 
next in favour. In this bia; room at the back one 



2 54 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

waiter and two underlings manage to serve all fourteen B 
tables, which is a wonderful feat of waiting, but which I 
has its disadvantages in that everything has to be 
done by the three men at express speed. There is 
no quiet talking cfver the carte de jour^ with sug- 
gestions made and hints given as to the best dishes, 
and if one once misses one of the servitors on his 
round one has to wait till he rushes past again, moving in 
his eccentric orbit. If one wishes to obtain some hints 
as to Tuscan dishes, it is well to go early into Melini's, 
before people arrive for a meal, and secure a table 
beforehand. The head-waiter, then in a state of com- 
parative quiescence, is quite ready to be obliging and 
give one any information. There is a long list of 
dishes of the day at Melini's, and those which are 
printed all have French translations opposite to them. 
It is only those Italian dishes scribbled hastily in 
violet ink, which lead one into the deep waters of 
ignorance. There are two set dinners at Melini's at 
1. 3.50 and 1. 4.50 respectively, and a quarter of a litre 
of wine, red or white, is included for these sums. The 
plats de jour on the bill of fare are generally priced 
at 1. 1.20. 

Another restaurant in the Via Calzaioli well worth 
a visit is the Toscano. You will find comparative 
Toscana, Via quiet in its series of dining-rooms on 
Calzaioli ^^ fjj-st floor, and the fish there is 

always fresh, for the proprietor has a branch establish- 
ment at Leghorn, and a daily supply of fish is sent 
him from that port. If you dine in the first of the 
series of rooms take note of the border of the paper, 
a border which consists of paintings of bunches of 
vegetables treated in decorative style. The Toscano 
has a certain dignity of its own, and its portieres of 
silk and old gold are mighty grand. Its napery and 
its cutlery are, however, not up to the grandeur of its 
portieres. A plated cradle for a big flask of Chianti 



Italy 255 

stands on each table. The waiters are the usual 
friendly Italians, pleased to chat on any subject. The 
head-waiter thinks that he talks French. The clientele 
at the Toscano is of the middle classes, and you may 
see there daily families of father, mother, and daughters 
bringing in the son, serving as a N.C.O. or as a private 
in one of the regiments, to give him a real good mid- 
day meal and to hear all his news. There is a lengthy 
list of dishes a la carte^ but most of the customers 
seem to take the lunch of the day of three dishes at 
1. 2.50, and the dinner of the day at 1. 3.50. 

Bonciani's, in the Via Panzani, on the way to the 
station, is a restaurant which is much patronised by the 
middle-class Florentines. 

An artist in England once told me that if I did not 
see Lapi's I should miss the most picturesque res- 
taurant in Florence. I asked the hall 
porter at my hotel where I should find 
this picturesque house of refreshment. He held up 
his hands in horror, and told me that it was an eating 
place to which I could not possibly go. This naturally 
whetted my curiosity, and after looking about for some 
time I found Lapi's. It is just ofFthe Piazza Antinori,in 
a house shared between a banking establishment and the 
museum of a dealer in antiquities. You go round 
one corner and you see a door with " Lapi " inscribed 
on either side of it. At first all you can perceive in the 
dark entry is a man standing in shirt sleeves behind a 
counter with a background of wine flasks ornamented 
with vine leaves. Then you notice a staircase going 
down into the depths of the earth and ending in semi- 
darkness of a fine Rembrandt brown. There are 
tables in this place of shadows, and two swinging 
lights supply the only illumination there is. I could 
see that the colour and the dim light must appeal to 
any artist, but I mentally agreed with the hall porter 
that this was no place for me, and in spite of a pressing 



256 The Gourmet's Guide to Surope 

invitation from the gentleman in shirt sleeves to 
descend, I turned and w^ent on my way. 

The Gambrinus, in one corner of the Piazza 
Vittorio Emanuele, and its more gorgeous rival just 
opposite to it, are places of revelry after dinner. 
They are both brasseries. Paoli's is a place at which 
the young Florentines amuse themselves with good 
oysters and bad company, as they also do at Picciolo's. 

A travelling gourmet who has written me an 
interesting letter on the restaurants of Northern Italy 
asks me to mention in this book the cook at the 
Villa Trollope, the pension at which he stayed. This 
chef is an enthusiast in his art, and was always ready 
to give not only information concerning, but also 
practical exposition of the cookery of Italian dishes. 
It is not my custom to mention pensions in this book, 
but I make this exception. 

There are not many dishes distinctively Florentine. 
Stracotto^ braised beef with tomatoes, is one of them ; 
and Fegatini di pollo^ giblets stewed in wine sauce, is 
another. The Tuscan fowls are especially esteemed, 
and are roasted before a wood fire ; and there is a 
special Florentine salad of haricot beans generally 
served with caviare. The figs, of many kinds, are 
delicious ; and Presciutto con fich'i^ fresh eggs and ham, 
are eaten all over Tuscany. The chestnuts from the 
Apennines are some of the best flavoured in Italy. 
Chianti and Montepulciano are the best of the half- 
dozen local wines. 

The Florentine Club, Via Borgnosanti, is hospitable 
to travelling Englishmen properly introduced. At 
one period there was an English Club in Florence, 
and it was modelled in miniature on the Naval and 
Military Club of Piccadilly, so far as its interior 
arrangements were concerned. The honorary secre- 
tary of those days was a retired officer, a member of 
the Naval and Mihtary, and the form of the bill of 



Italy 257 

fare, the livery, and many other matters of interior 
economy were copies from the London club. 



AFTER DINNER 

The big opera house at Florence commences its 
season quite late in the autumn. There is another 
smaller opera house, the Verdi, which is generally 
open when the big opera house is closed ; there is a 
comedy theatre, and there is the big Politeama, which 
must have been built originally as a circus, but which 
has a proscenium which occupies one of its eight 
sides. When comedies or operas are played there, 
chairs occupy what is in circus times the ring, and 
people move about with a good deal more freedom 
than they do in an ordinary theatre. The prices are 
cheap, but the performances are often very good. It 
is, however, a temple of the winds, and in cold 
weather it is well to keep on one's greatcoat when 
going there. The Alhambra, in the Piazza Beccaria, is 
the old-established Variety Theatre ; but it has a rival in 
the Apollo, which is a much newer building. The 
Apollo is in a narrow little alley leading out of a little 
square, and it has its gas signs and its ticket office in 
the square. It is about half the size of the London 
Tivoli, and is prettily decorated in pink and gold, with 
plaques on the ceiling of ladies on horseback jumping 
over tigers, of Chinamen and guinea-pigs turning 
head over heels, and of other such-like subjects. I 
was present on the opening night of this hall, and 
there were in the stalls, amongst other very respectable 
people,, officers of the garrison in uniform and their 
wives and daughters. The audience in the gallery, 
who I should think generally consisted of students, 
had come on that particular night with the intention 
of making as much noise as they could. The first 

* R 



258 The Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

three "turns" were contributed by damsels who had 
no voice to speak of, and who as a compensation wore 
no garments worth mentioning. They came on 
smiling, and the audience in the gallery received them 
as old friends. Their first songs were allowed to pass, 
except that now and again some one in the gallery 
would help them with a high note, but the audience 
thought their second songs were superfluous. A very 
small puppy, a human one of course, up in the gallery, 
always gave the signal for the commencement of the 
noise by a very shrill howl, and then a cock crew 
and a big dog barked, and a donkey began to bray, 
and the damsels, smiling and not in the least dis- 
turbed, finished their songs in dumb show. But when 
the management brought out its good " turns," the 
gallery recovered its manners and became enthusiastic. 
A woman with a very good voice sang some operatic 
airs ; there was a comic man and an impudent little 
Frenchwoman dressed as a baby, and an imitator of 
the chief Italian actors of the day, who was the most 
popular of all the people appearing. 



FlESOLI 

There are various little restaurants in Fiesoli, each 
of which depends more on the views from its windows 
and terrace than on its cookery. The first place of 
refreshment to catch one's eye on arriving is the Res- 
taurant Brioschi, and this, if one can obtain one of the 
two tables which are set on the little terrace, is 
perhaps the best place at which to lunch. The 
dining-room is comparatively airy, for it has windows 
in front and behind, and from the terrace the view 
over the country to Florence is a beautiful one, 



Italy 



259 



Pisa 

The Nettuno at Pisa is the old-fashioned Itah'an 
inn, and it used to be the restaurant patronised by 
the officers of the garrison, but for some Nettuno, 
reason they quarrelled with the pro- Lungamo Regio 
prietor and transferred their custom to the other Italian 
restaurant and inn, the Cervia. 

Pisa prides itself on its puddings and confectionery. 
The Pattona and Castagnacci^ both alia Pisana, are 
puddings made of chestnut flour and olive oil, and 
flavoured with fruit. Schiacciata are Easter cakes. In 
the afternoon, after a walk on the Lungarno, all the 
world of Pisa goes to Bazzeli, the pastry-cook's shop, 
and there you may find the elders of the town and 
the high officers of the garrison, talking over affairs 
of State while they demolish many little cakes. 

Leghorn 

Comparatively few Anglo-Saxon travellers go to 
Leghorn, for it is not one of the show places of Italy, 
and the bathing season there is just the time when 
tourists keep away from Italy. But I received such 
a glowing account from an Englishman (to whom I 
owe grateful thanks for the information embodied in 
this chapter) concerning the Albergo Giappone, that, 
being at Pisa, I ran over to the seaport to thank my 
informant, and to eat a dinner at this typical Tuscan 
restaurant. 

The main street of Leghorn, the Via Vittorio 
Emanuele, is verv like a street at Chatham or Wool- 
wich. It is not too clean, and a great .„ 
deal too noisy. A bow window, with Giappone, Via 
o;round glass of a sufficient height to vittorio 
f 1 r 11- • .^ ..u Emanuele 

keep people trom lookmg mto the room, 

gives light to the dining-room of the Giappone, The 



26o T'he Gourtnet's Guide to Europe 

entrance to this leads out of the hall of the hotel 
named Giappone. There is a feeling of good manners 
and restfulness directly one enters the restaurant. 
Couches are against the walls, and two rows of little 
tables are about all that the restaurant can comfort- 
ably hold. The chairs are wooden ones of an artistic 
pattern, and not the eternal bent-wood ones one finds 
in most Italian restaurants. Many famous Italians 
have dined at one time or another at the Giappone — 
Crispi Zanardelli, Cavallotti, Benedetto Brin, Pucchini, 
Mascagni, to mention only a few out of the many. 
The proprietor of old days was the Cavaliere Pas- 
quale Cianfanelli, whose name was known even on 
the London market for the excellence of his Tuscan 
wines. The Cavaliere, whose courteous manners gave 
an added pleasure to a dinner at the restaurant, for he 
always went the round of the tables to ask if each 
diner was satisfied, has been succeeded in the pro- 
prietorship by his son, who apparently does not take 
quite the same interest in the restaurant that his father 
did. But the Giappone is still the first amongst Tuscan 
restaurants. The general and his staff officers gener- 
ally come out to dine, and all its patrons seem to be 
gentlemen of position, while the ladies, their wives 
and daughters, whom they bring to dine, are distin- 
guished and well dressed. There is quite a majestic 
list of dishes on the menu a la carte, but I found that 
the dinner of the day at 1. 3.50 contained one of the 
specialties of the house, the capon LiicuUiana, and as 
there was a frittura as well, I ate the house dinner, 
which everybody around me seemed also to be doing. 
There was a puree in which the local paste was the 
principal ingredient ; the frittura was of sweetbreads, 
admirably cooked, with fried potatoes ; the stuffed capon 
had white truffles and a rich sauce. The waiter, 
when he set this last dish before me, paused to see 
whether I gave it due appreciation. People who had 



Italy 



l6i 



already dined addressed a word of advice to new- 
comers not to miss this delicacy, and it was evidently 
regarded by all the personnel of the restaurant as a chef 
cV ceuvre^ which it was. Roast veal and potatoes and 
fruit completed the meal. I drank a small flask of the 
red wine of the house, Ruffina, a Cafe Expresso, and 
a glass of Anisette, and my bill was just under 1. 5. 

The full Tuscan dinner does not follow in the 
order of fish, entree, roast, piece de resistance^ and game, 
but of boiled (^^j-)?),* fried [fritto)^ stewed {um'ido)^ and 
roast [arrosto). The boiled may be beef; the fry, 
sweetbread ; the stew, iish ; the roast, pigeon ; but 
this order is always maintained, and the stranger's 
disappointment at there being no fish after the soup is 
only equalled by his astonishment when it turns up in 
the fourth place. It is for this reason that the Tuscan 
bill of fare proves such a puzzle to the stranger with 
only a smattering of the language, for it is not made 
out under the headings of fish, entrees, joint, &c., but 
of less'i^ fr'itt'i^ iim'id'i^ and arrosti ; and fish, for instance, 
will be found under all four headings. Famous dishes 
at the Giappone are Spaghetti a siigo di came (gravy 
sauce), Risotto^ with white truffles, Arselle (a small 
shell-fish) alia Marinara^ Triglie (red mullet) alia 
Livornese^ Fritto niisto (mixed fry), Controfilctto con 
Maccheroni and the PiccoH Marmites^ as good and five 
times as cheap as can be obtained at any restaurant of 
the French Riviera. The diner cannot do better than 
keep to the ordinary Vino da Pasto, and end with the 
delicious Cafe Espresso and a Val d'Ema (Tuscan 
Chartreuse) green or yellow. The best Tuscan 
mineral water is the Acqua Litiosa di S. Marco (from 
the province of Grosseto), and it deserves more than 
a merely local fame. If the traveller's flask is not 
already empty, let him try some of its contents with 
this water, and he will have a pleasant surprise. 

The restaurant attached to the Hotel d'Angleterre- 



262 The Gourmef 5 Guide to Siirope 

Campari is also an excellent one. Why the hotel is 
called Angleterre, not Inglaterra, no one knows. The 
Ang-leterre hotel and restaurant are owned by 

ViaVittorio Signori de Stefani and Clerici, the latter 

Emanuele ^^ whom was in London for a time at 

the Restaurant d'ltalie. The way into the restaurant' 
is through the dark and narrow hotel corridor, but a 
large skylight gives brightness to the restaurant, and 
the walls are light in colour. The Italian naval officers 
patronise this restaurant, as do the business men of 
the city, for their mid-day meal. There are tables all 
round the room. The fixed-price lunch seems to be 
universally eaten. On one of the days I lunched 
there the menu contained ^w^aV;/, which are a specialty 
of the house, a savoury stew of the w"hite flesh of 
chickens and their livers, and some excellent mutton. 
The sheep which feed on the meadows between Leg- 
horn and Pisa give excellent mutton, a meat which, 
as a rule, is none too good in Italy. The proprietors 
bustle about with as much energy as any of their 
waiters, show their customers a great dish of fresh fish 
just brought up from the harbour, call their attention 
to any specially delicious cake that may be on the bill 
of fare, and would be broken-hearted if any luncher 
or diner was in the least dissatisfied. 

The former Grand, a house of marble halls, is now 
known as the Palace, and is under the management 
of Spaini & Co. The cookery is distinctly good, and 
the officers of the British navy usually make this their 
dining place whenever any of his Majesty's ships are 
in the harbour. 

The Casa Rosa on the pier is a pleasant place for 
a meal in summer. 

Acqui della Salute^ the cure place just outside the 
walls of Leghorn, is one of the pleasant places to 
which the well-off people of Tuscany go yearly to 
drink waters for the sake of their livers. There are 



Italy 263 

two large hotels there, one of which is managed by 
Bertolini, the most famous of Italian restaurateurs, and 
there is a little restaurant not attached to any hotel. 
The Corallo^ the water which comes from the prin- 
cipal spring, is not one to be drunk unless one is going 
through the cure, for its effects are immediate and 
severe. 

AFTER DINNER 

Leghorn has its big opera house in the principal 
square, its comedy house, and its summer variety 
house, but my experiences began and ended with an 
evening at the opera. The company singing was not 
a first-class one. 

Lucca 

Lucca is too serious a place to care much about the 
inner man. But the fascinating old town is a place 
to visit, and the visitor cannot do better universo. Piazza 
than go to the Universo. Open eggs delGig-lio 
and a filetto alia Parigina are safe and sound dishes, 
while if he should be there during the season of the 
famous Brobdingnagian asparagus from Pescia, he 
will have a real treat if he eat it a hwro e formaggio^ 
in other words alia Parmigiana. For morning and 
afternoon refreshers go to Carlo Caselli's carlo Caselli, 
in the Via Filungo'T Mine host is a ViaFiiungo 
gentleman of culture, with a profound knowledge of 
Lucca, and will discuss the antiquities of the place 
with you while you discuss his excellent vermouth 
and bitter. 

Rome 

A man who loved strange experiments in eating, 
once asked me in Rome to dine with him at a very 
cheap inn outside one of the gates, and he explained 
how the dinner was arranged. He had found a hostel 
which did not provide food, but if you bought a Iamb 



264 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

from a shepherd outside the gate, so as to save the 
octroi^ you could have it cooked in a great pot, a certain 
amount being charged for the cooking ; and you bought 
your wine, as a matter of course, at the inn. The 
carters and herds were, he told me, the people who 
partook of this repast, and every man ate his own 
lamb, leaving little but the bones. I did not go to 
that inn. That place of refreshment was at one end 
of the social ladder; the Grand, Excelsior, Regina, and 
Quirinale are at the other. Set a man down in the 
restaurant of the Grand, or of the Excelsior, or in the 
Winter Garden of the Quirinale, and there will be 
nothing to give him a hint as to whether he is in 
London, or Paris, or-Rome. He will eat an excellent 
dinner — French in all respects — and will be waited on 
by civil waiters, whom he knows to be foreigners, but 
who will answer him in English whatever language he 
addresses them in. At any of these restaurants an 
excellent dinner of ceremony can be given. The 
last time that I stayed at the Grand, I ate the table 
d'hote dinner on several occasions and found it good. 
The Umberto, the San Carlo in the Piazza San Carlo, 
and the Colonna in the Piazza Colonna, are the 
typical city restaurants ; but they have a leaning 
towards the French cuisine. To eat Italian food, 
Delle Venete, Via try Delle Venete in the Via Campo 
Campo Marzio Marzio, which has a garden. The full 
name of this restaurant was Delle Belle Venete, and 
it was kept by three sisters, Venetians, the last of 
whom died last year. In the summer lunch in the 
garden of the Tre Re, hard by the Pantheon, where 
you must talk Italian, or else make signs. 

Bucci, in the Piazza della Coppelle, is the Scott's 
Bucci, Piazza or Driver's of Rome, and you can dine 
della Coppelle or lunch there off shell-fish soup, and 
the fish which comes from Anzio and the other fishin2; 
villages of the coast. 



Italy 265 

There is a curious restaurant close by the station — 
Vaghani is, I fancy, the owner — where artichokes are 
the staple fare, and where the decorations are in 
keeping with the food. You will find the foreign 
colony of art students — Danes, Norwegians, Germans 
—in the restaurants of the Via delle Croce. The 
Scandinivo is an excellent little cheap restaurant, which 
sends out dinners to the neighbouring Scandinivo, Via 
apartments. The diplomatists and Porta Pinciana. 
such of the society folk of Rome who remain in the 
city in summer often dine on the terrace of the 
Castello Constantino, high on one of the hills. Of 
course there are Roman dishes w^ithout number, and 
these are some of the best known of them : — 

The Zuppa di Pesce is a Bouillabaisse without any 
saffron. The fish and shell-fish (John Dory, red 
mullet, cuttle-fish, lobster, whiting, muraena^ and 
mussels) which compose it are served on toast. The 
Fritto di Calamaretti is a fry of cuttle-fish in oil. 
Cinghiale in agro dolce is wild boar cooked in a sauce 
of chocolate, sugar, plums, pinolis^ red currant, and 
vinegar. A Bacchio e Capretto alia Cacciatora is verv 
young lamb and sucking-goat cut into small pieces, 
and cooked in a sauce to which anchovies and chillies 
give the dominant taste. Polio en padella are spring 
chickens cut up and fried with tomatoes, large sweet 
chillies, and white wine. Pasticcio di Maccheroni is 
an excellent macaroni pie, and Gnocchi di Patch are 
little knobs of paste boiled like macaroni. Broccoli, 
green peas cooked with butter and ham, and, above 
all, the Roman artichoke stewed in oil — which is to 
be obtained at its best in the old Jewish eating-houses 
of the Ghetto — are the vegetables of Rome. A very 
small ham is one of the local delicacies. Gnocchi di 
latte are custards in layers, each of which is seasoned 
with either sugar or butter, or cinnamon or Parmesan 
cheese ; and Zuapa Inglese is a rich cake soused with 



266 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

liqueurs and vanilla cream, covered w^ith meringue 
and then baked. Uova d'l Bufola is a little ball of 
cheese made from buffalo's milk. The best kind, 
Ahota^ is kept in wrappings of fresh myrtle leaves. 
Marino (red) and Frascati (w^hite) are two of the best 
local wines. Orvieto has a faint remembrance of 
the champagne taste. Monte Fiascone is a dessert 
wine. 

The Clubs of Rome 

The two clubs of Rome to which a certain number 
of the Anglo-Saxon residents belong and which extend 
courtesy to properly vouched for strangers are the 
Caccia and the Nuovo, both in the Corso. These 
are both small clubs, and are more like an English 
county club than one of the great clubs of Pall Mall 
or St. James's Street. An Englishman who knows his 
Rome well writes thus to me concerning the Circolo 
della Caccia (Anglice, Hunt Club) : " It is a sort of 
mixture of the old Fox Hunters', Boodles, and the 
modern Turf, all in one. An Englishman with good 
introductions and sporting inclinations can, if properly 
proposed and seconded, become first of all an hono- 
rary member for a month. If he wishes to use the 
club for a longer period, his name is put up and he 
is balloted for. In the meanwhile the would-be 
member should take care to be introduced to as many 
members of the club as possible. The house dinner 
is excellent. There are two rooms for cards. In 
the outer one ecarte is played for low stakes. In the 
inner sanctum, on great occasions such as Carnival, 
there is sometimes high play. ' Chits ' are given for 
all expenses incurred in the club — wine, cigars, dinners, 
&c. ; and bills are settled weekly or monthly. Nearly 
every one \r\ the high official and diplomatic world 
belongs to the Caccia ; even the Neri, or Papal ad- 
herents. In fact, a more cheery, well-conducted, and 






Italy 267 

hospitable club does not exist in Europe." The Nuovo 
is rather more quiet than the Caccia, and there is less 
play than at the larger club. A Ladies' Club has 
recently been instituted in Rome. 

AFTER DINNER 

During the winter there is always something of 
interest to be seen both at the opera and at the comedy 
theatres, for though Rome does not hold the same 
position to Italy in the art world that London does 
to England, many authors and composers give the 
capital the first taste of their novelties. There are 
half-a-dozen large theatres, and four or five small ones. 
The music halls are the Margherita and Oiympia. 

Naples 

There is a certain man in a certain London club 
who has a grievance against Italy in general, against 
Naples in particular, and, to descend to minute detail, 
against one Neapolitan restaurant above all others. 
He tells his tale to all comers as a warning to those 
who will travel in " foreign parts." He returned 
from a long turn of service in India, and, landing at 
Naples, concluded that as he was in Europe he could 
2;et British food. He went to a restaurant which 
shall be nameless, and ordered a " chump chop." 
He had the greatest difficulty, through an interpreter, 
to explain exactly what it was that he wanted, and 
then was forced to wait for an hour before it appeared. 
When the bill was presented it frightened him, but 
the proprietor, on being summoned, said that as such 
an extraordinary joint had been asked for, he had 
been compelled to buy a whole sheep to supply it. 
This is a warning not to ask for British dishes in 
a Neapolitan restaurant. 



268 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

The Neapolitans who have money to spend go 
now by the big h'ft inside the rock to Bertolini's 
Bertolini's, to dine or lunch when they are on 

ParcoGrifeo holiday bent. The ascent in the lift 

is a minor excitement, and the view from the windows 
of the big dining-room, which is almost level with the 
top of the cliffs, is a splendid one, for the bay and the 
islands are spread out like a map and the town lies 
far below. The cookery at Bertolini's is good, and 
the surroundings are of the pleasantest. 

Time was when the Gambrinus, which is the 
excellently decorated cafe and restaurant at the end 

Gamtoiiins, ^^ ^'^^ Chiaja, and the big cafe and 

Piazza San restaurant, the Umberto Primo, in the 

Ferdmando great arcade, were at daggers drawn, 

and a war of cutting down of prices raged. In those 
happy days one could dine or lunch at either place 
sumptuously for a shilling. Some meddling busybody 
interfered in the quarrel and brought the proprietors into 
a friendly spirit. The Gambrinus, with its bright 
rooms, good decorations, and fair attendance, is per- 
haps the best restaurant in the lower town at which 
a stranger can take a meal, unless he is looking for 
the distinctive Neapolitan cookery. If he is in search 
of the dishes of the town, let him try the Europa or, 
better still for his purpose, the Vermouth di Torino 
in the Piazza del Municipio. The Giardini di Torino 
Giardini di ^^ ^^^ Vico Tre Re is national in its 

Torino, Vico cookery, but is a good deal cleaner than 

Tre Re most of the restaurants of the Neapoli- 

tans. The dining-rooms, leading one into the other, 
are on the first floor. A solitary Englishman, thou2;h 
he may feel lost amidst the rush of waiters and babel 
of voices, is sure to be eventually rescued by an 
English-speaking head waiter and guided to a table 
v/here his compatriots forgather. To eat the fish 
dishes which show the real cookery of Naples better 



Italy 269 

than any other, he should go out on a moonh'ght 
night a couple of miles to the Antica Trattoria dello 
Scoglio di Frisio, or to the less aristocratic Trattoria 
del Figlio di Pietro in the Strada Nuova del Posilipo. 

Of the macaroni I have already written. The 
splendid tomatoes grown in Naples, which are cooked 
with it, give it its particular excellence. It is also 
seasoned with cheese. Spagetti alle Fongolc is the 
macaroni seasoned with the little shell-fish of the 
place. Zuppa di Vongole is a clear soup of bread and 
Vongole. Polp'i alia Luciana are small octopi stewed 
in an earthen pot with oil, tomatoes, chillies, and red 
wine. Betv/een the pot and the lid a sheet of oiled 
paper is placed, to prevent the steam from escaping. 
The Splgola^ the most delicate of fishes of the Medi- 
terranean, is at its best between i and i^ lbs. in 
weight. It is either boiled or baked, and is served 
with a sauce of oil, lemon juice, and chopped parsley. 
A steak alia Pixxaiola is baked in an oven with 
potatoes, garlic, and thyme ; and Pizza alia Pizzaiola 
is a kind of Yorkshire pudding eaten either with 
cheese or anchovies and tomatoes flavoured with 
thyme. Mozzarelle in carozza is a slice of bread 
soaked in milk and a slice of Provola cheese, the 
whole plunged in beaten eggs and then fried. There 
is an excellent Neapolitan method of treating egg- 
plants, fried in oil, cut in slices, sandwiched with 
cheese and tomatoes, and then baked. Provola and 
Cacio Cavallo are the Neapolitan cheeses. Vesuvio, 
Capri, Gragnano, Lacrima Christa are a few of the 
wines grown along the bays. The walnuts of Sor- 
rento are the best in Central Italy. 

AFTER DINNER 

A gala night at San Carlo is worth taking some 
trouble, and paying a high price, to see. When a 



270 T^he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

Neapolitan audience becomes excited its enthusiasm is 
boundless. I have generally found some star actor or 
actress playing at the Sannazaro, and the stalls at that 
theatre are less uncomfortable than they generally are 
in Italian theatres. The Puncinello theatres, if open, 
are amusing. The Salone Margherita is a fine large 
variety hall. 

Palermo 



The restaurant of the Villa Igeia gave me excellent 

French cookery during a stay I made in Palermo. 

Many of the artists v^^ho have stayed 

geia ^^ ^j_^^ Hotel de France in the centre 

of the town have a very good word to say as to its 

kitchen ; and the Hotel des Palmes, which was in 

the builders' hands for extension and redecoration 

when I saw it, has a reputation for feeding its guests 

well. I wanted, however, to try the Sicilian cuisine, 

and I persisted in my wish in spite of warnings from 

everybody, from the manager of the Igeia down to a 

tramcar conductor. The only concession I made, 

out of compliment to my mentors, was to lunch 

and not to dine at a real Sicilian restaurant. The 

oil which is used in Sicilian cookery is, I was told, 

very difficult to digest, and I was warned that oil 

and tomatoes are the two great stand-bys of a Sicilian 

cook. I chose the Restaurant Umberto, which is in 

Umberto ^^^ ^^^ Maqueda, close to the Piazza 

292 Via Marina, for my experiment, for it 

Maqueda looked, and was, very clean. The 

head waiter talks a little French, and with his help 

I read over the bill of fare written in execrable 

handwriting and violet ink. Boiled beef and veal 

cooked in many forms seemed to be the principal 

dishes, so I appealed to the waiter to bring me a 

thoroughly Sicilian dish, and then waited to see what 

would happen, When the dish came it proved to 



Italy 271 

be little strips of tripe cooked in oil with beans and 
tomatoes. It was by no means unpalatable. I then 
ordered a dish of fried calf's brains, which was excel- 
lent, for every Italian cook fries admirably. The 
wines of the country on the Umberto's list are 
Camastro, Carituba, Corvo, and Signora ; and of 
these I chose Camastro at a venture, and found it 
to be a harmless white wine with a curious little 
after taste of prunes. The Sphagetti of Palermo is 
generally seasoned with minced meat and egg-plant. 
Marsala, Moscato di Siracusa, and Amarena di Sira- 
cusa are some of the wines of the island which are 
obtainable in Palermo and all the other towns of 
the island. 

Sicily is not an island of good material for cookery, 
and most of the rich inhabitants of Palermo and the 
leading hotels import their mutton, veal, and chickens 
from Naples, a supply being brought every morning 
by the line of steamers which run down the coast 
every night. 

Clubs 

The Casino Nuovo, 411 Corso Vittorio Emanuele, 
is hospitably inclined towards visitors. An honorary 
member is made free of the club, which has very fine 
rooms, for a fortnight, and can continue his member- 
ship at 1. 10 a month. The Artists' Club is in the 
Via Isnello, No. 7. 

AFTER DINNER 

The Teatro Massino is a huge barn of a house, and 
grand opera and long ballets are on its bill of fare. 
The Bellini, a tawdry red, blue, and gold house, is the 
popular house of opera. Everything except the treat- 
ment of debutants is of the friendliest description in 
this house, The musicians of the orchestra sit during 



272 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Surope 

the entr'acts in any unoccupied stall and chat to 
their friends, the singers are greeted by their admirers 
with an ovation after each air, and the hour of com- 
mencement and of ending are not to be judged by the 
time put down on the programme. Novelli was play- 
ing at one theatre, and one of the young Salvinis, in 
his father's parts, was at another, the last time I stayed 
at Palermo, and there is generally a good programme 
at the Politieama music hall. At the Garibaldi the 
Sicilian tragedians sometimes play for a season. 



IX 

SPAIN 



The Cuisine of Spain — Barcelona — The Clubs of Barcelona — Port 
Bou — San Sebastian — San Sebastian Clubs — Bilbao— Portu- 
galete — Madrid — Madrilene Clubs — Andalusian Cookery — 
Seville — Sevilian Clubs — Bobadilla — Granada — Jerez — The 
Clubs of Jerez — Cadiz — The Cadiz Clubs — San Lucar — 
Algeceiras — Ronda — Malaga — The Malaguenean Clubs. 



The Cuisine of Spain 

A CANDID Frenchman, who had Hved long in Spain, 
asked as to the cookery of Spain compared with that 
of other nations, replied, " It is worse even than that 
of the English, which is the next worst." That 
Frenchman was, however, rather ungrateful, for the 
Spaniards taught the French how to stuff turkeys with 
chestnuts. The Spanish cooks also first understood 
that an orange salad is the proper accompaniment to 
a wild duck, the Spanish hams are excellent, and the 
Arrox Valenciana and some of the egg dishes deserve 
a place in all cookery books. The lower orders in 
Spain have too great a partiality for ajo and ace'ite^ 
for oil and garlic. Their oil, which they use greatly 
even with fish, is not the refined oil of Genoa or the 
south of France, but is a coarse liquid, the ill taste of 
which remains all day in one's mouth. Garlic is an 
excellent seasoning in its proper place and quantity, 
and the upper classes of the Spaniards have their meat 
lightly rubbed with it before being cooked, but the 



274 ^^T-^ Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

lower classes use it in the cooking to an intolerable 
extent. Capsicum is much eaten in Spain, being 
sometimes stuffed, but in any quantity it is very 
indigestible. The peppers, red or green, but gene- 
rally green, are first heated on a gridiron and then 
steamed in order that the skin may be easily removed. 
In a salad with tomatoes they form an excellent 
mixture. 

In the south of Spain the heat is tropical in the 
summer, and the only meat then available in any 
small town is generally goat. As in India, the 
chicken which you order for your lunch is running 
about the yard of the inn when the order is given. 
The principal dish of Spain is Fuchero^^N\\\Q^^. is analo- 
gous to the Fot au Feu of the French. Everything 
goes into the pot, but the principal ingredients are 
garban%os (the Spanish name for white haricot beans), 
meat, fresh bacon, rancid bacon, onions and garlic. 
When the water boils, the soaked garhan%os are 
thrown in. In most kitchens in Spain the mixture 
is allowed to boil as rapidly as possible, but the classic 
tradition is that it should boil slowly, and that the 
scum should be taken off. Unless the mistress of 
the house happens to be in the kitchen, the scum 
never is taken off, for Spanish plain cooks much 
resemble plain cooks in other countries — only more 
so. The liquid of this stew forms the Caldo^ or broth, 
and by adding rice, vermicelli, or Italian paste, the 
broth becomes ^opa cle Puchero. When the broth 
has been drained off, chorizo^ a sausage of pork* and 
red pepper, a sort of blood pudding, and whatever 
vegetables are in season, are put in and allowed to 
stew. The stewed meats being extracted are served 
as Cocidoy and in well-to-do families are put on the 
table with the vegetables ; but in poor families the 
meat, bacon, &c., form a separate dish, and are called 
La Pringada, Gaspacho is a cold mixture, the staple 



I 



Spain 275 

lunch of the peasant, who for a change eats in the 
vintage season a bunch of grapes and some bread. 
The better classes drink it iced, and it makes its 
appearance at dinner with the salad. It is a compound 
of many things — bread crumbs, bonito fish, pepper, 
salt, tomatoes, oil, vinegar, garlic, cucumbers, all 
soaked well with water. Paul Bosanquet writes of 
it : " Preparez le bien, servez le bien froid, et jetez le 
par la fenetre." Other writers, however, speak more 
kindly of it, and the English in Spain say that in the 
very hot weather it is a very refreshing mixture 
instead of afternoon tea. Gaspadro de Alemeudras 
is the aristocratic form of the above. Bacalao^ or 
dried cod, is one of the staple dishes of the poor in 
the north, and the English in Spain also often eat it. 
There are two methods of eating it — one with rice, 
a la Valendana^ and the other known as Soldados de 
Pavia^ because the soldiers of Pavia were supposed 
to be able to eat anything. The cod-fish in this case 
are fried in oil, after being well soaked in water and 
then dipped in flour. Arro% a la Valenclana is an 
excellent mixture of rice and tomatoes, peppers, 
green peas, ham, small birds, and chicken. It is my 
humble opinion it is the best of the Spanish dishes. 
Ropa V'leja is a stew of all kinds of material. Its 
name means "old rags." A tale is told of a favourite 
actor who ordered this dish at a restaurant. When it 
was brought to him he noticed that there was no 
meat in it, and he called for the manager. This 
cannot be what I ordered, he said, for one can always 
see the flesh through old rags. 

Some Spanish dishes to be welcomed when seen on 
a m.enu are Bocarones^ a fry of tiny fish, Trenettes 
ham, chestnut fed and snow cured, Montanchez ham, 
acorn fed and sugar cured, Langostina^ prawns of great 
size and fine flavour, Salmonete frito^ a dry fry of red 
mullet, Guiso de Perdi-z^ a ragout of partridge and bay 



276 T'fie Goiirmef s Guide to Europe 

leaves, Asad'ias fr'itus^ tiny fried soles, and ^Isson Asado^ 
the lesser bustard roast. 

The dishes of Andalusia, which has a cuisine of its 
own, I write of under the heading of Seville, and some 
dishes of other provinces will be found mentioned 
later in this article. 

The red wines of the Marquis de Riscal are much 
esteemed all over Spain. Valdepenas, a burgundy, 
one of the wines most drunk in the country, is very 
strong, and really requires eight or ten years in bottle 
to mature. A Rioja claret, which is a good wine 
when four years in bottle, and of course sherry in the 
south, of which all the leading brands are obtainable, 
are other wines always to be found in the restaurants. 
In the north I have found Diamante a pleasant wine 
to drink, and the Sauternes of the Marquis de Teran 
are really excellent. The Spanish brandy is, if a good 
brand is chosen, a fine chasse. The sweet wines of 
Spain are the Pedro Jimenez of Jerez, Malaga, Mos- 
catel and Tarragona Port. A very cheap wine, but 
an excellent tonic, only obtainable in taverns, is Vino 
Duro. 

AFTER DINNER 

My experiences of after-dinner amusement in the 
towns of Spain have been limited. Whenever I have 
been to the opera at Madrid or Seville I have found 
the performances very like those of the provincial 
Italian cities, though the chorus is even more casual 
than the Italian one. The enthusiasm for native 
singers, especially tenors, is very warm. The old 
Italian operas are most in favour, and, curiously 
enough. Carmen is by no means a favourite opera in 
Spain. In any Spanish town I go after dinner to 
the Zarzuella theatre. The Zarzuella is the typical 
Spanish short play with music, and some of them are 
excellent. I always wonder that none of them have 



Spain 277 

been adapted for other stages. A Zarzuella theatre 
changes its audiences three times nightly, and one 
pays for an hour's entertainment. The circus in 
Madrid is often amusing, and both in the capital and 
the provinces circuses generally have a burlesque on 
a bull-fight. It is not wise to take ladies to the Cafes 
Cantantes, and certainly not wise for ladies to go there 
by themselves. I once saw a party of American lady 
tourists, who had walked into a cafe where some 
Flamenga girls were dancing, and had not ordered 
any refreshment, extricated at some risk from a 
threatening crowd by a Spanish-speaking Englishman. 



Barcelona 

The busy bustling capital of Catalonia has more 
money to spend than any other town of Spain, and 
its restaurants are more nunierous, and perhaps on the 
whole more so'ignh than those of any other town. 

The old restaurant at La Rabasada, on the moun- 
tain overlooking the town, has been acquired by a 

French syndicate, has been rebuilt, a 

1 , • •' , . (■ ' La Ratoasada 

glassed-m terrace bemg one or its attrac- 
tions, and is now an up-to-date French restaurant. 
A service of automobiles, starting from the Puerta 
del Angel, connects the city with La Rabasada, and 
an electric railway is in course of construction. 

The Maison Doree in the Plaza Cataluna, kept 
by two Frenchmen, MM. Pompidor, is a restaurant 
which is very go-ahead. It makes a Maison Doree, 
spk'ialite of prix-jixe breakfasts and din- Plaza Cataluna 
ners on Thursdays and Saturdays, and it serves tea daily 
a T Angla'ise from four to six. A new banqueting- 
room has lately been opened at this restaurant, and 
any man who is prepared to pay 25 pesetas a head for 
his guests can obtain here a most sumptuous feast. 



278 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Suf^ope 

Justin's, the longer title of which is the Restaurant 
de Francia, is in the Plaza Real, an old-established 
Justin's, house with a good cook, and excellent 

Plaza Real wines in its cellars. This is a restaurant 

at which the prices are not marked on the card of the 
day, but they are not higher than those at most of 
the other restaurants of Barcelona. There are some 
very pleasant private rooms at the restaurant, and a 
large room for banquets. The cuisine is almost 
entirely French. You can get a very fair dinner, 
wine and all, at Justin's for about 6s. ; but if you 
are giving a dinner-party, and are prepared to pay 
30 pesetas or i8s. a head, Justin's will give you such 
a dinner as the menu I give below, wine and all : — 

Haitres de Marennes. 

Consomme Colbert. 

Hors d'oeuvre varies. 

Loup. Sauce Holiandaise. 

Cotelettes de Sanglier Venaison. 

Salmis de Becasses. 

Chapon Truffe. 

Petits pois a la creme. 

Glace Napolitaine. 

Desserts assortis. 

ViNS. 

Rioja bianco. 

Vinicola. 

Cliquot sec frappe. 

The Rioja bianco. Diamante, and Vinicola seem 
to be the wines most generally drunk at Justin's. 
MM. Marius and Gerina were the proprietors, but 
I am told that Mons. Marius is no longer in 
command. 

In the central square, the Plaza Cataluna, is the 



spam 279 

new and gorgeous Restaurant Colon, attached to 
the hotel of that name. The decorations of the 
interior are artistic, and the building colon, Plaza 
bears on its facade in gold and colours Cataiuna 
the arms of the principal European nations. Here, 
as at Justin's, the cookery is almost entirely of the 
French school. The chef is M. Azcoaga, the manager 
M. Scatti. There is a good fixed-price lunch and 
dinner, specimen menus of which I give : — 

5 Pts. Dejeuner. 

Hors d'oeuvre. 

CEufs poches Princesse. 

Filets de Sole Waleska. 

Poulet Cocotte Bayaldy. 

Buifet froid. 

Filet grille. Pommes fondantes. 

Biscuit glace. 

Dessert. 

6 Pts. Dinner. 

Hors d'oeuvre. 

Consomme Duchesse. 

Creme Windsor. 

Turbot. Sauce Hollandaise. 

Carre d'Agneau Maintenon. 

Haricots verts Anglaise. 

Caille sur Canape. 

Salade. 

Peches Richelieu. 

Dessert. 

The Continental and Martin's are restaurants for 
which every one has a good word. The former, 
is in the Plaza Cataiuna, and its cuisine continental, 
is both foreign and of the country. On Plaza Cataiuna 
its bill of fare are always three plats de jour, and 
that on one day, Raviolis Napolitaine, Escargots Bour- 



2 Bo The Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

gu'inonney and Filet grille Bordelaise were the three 
dishes, and on another QLiifs Meyerbeer^ Filet dc veau m 
froid aux Legumes^ and Rap Marinera shows the ■! 
variety of the fare. The prices of these dishes are ■ 
all between i and 2 pesetas. Under the heading 
of friturcs^ all kinds of conchas and Escalopitas and 
Croquettas are to be found, as well as the Frito Mixta ; 
and the fish column gives an interesting selection of 
the sea denizens of the coast — Rap^ Calaynares^ Mer- 
lu%a^ Pouvine^ and others. 

Martin's in the Rambla del Centro is almost in 
Martin's front of the Opera House, and has a 

Rambla del number of snug little rooms for supper- 

Centro parties, of two or more, after the 

theatre. 

The Grand Hotel des Quatre Nations on the 
Rambla is an up-to-date house, and has a restaurant 
Francais attached to it which is called the Res- 

Rambla del taurant Francais, and which is intended 

®^ ^° to attract guests from the tov/n as well 

as visitors staying in the hotel. Its appointments are 
excellent, and so is its orchestra. 

PanylbetSj little round biscuits always eaten on 
Nov. I, can be obtained in Barcelona all the year 
round. Foexola (pronounced Fayzola) is a local dish. 
It consists of white beans and sausages, the beans 
being boiled before being placed in the oven to bake 
with the sausages. Jrroz con Anguillas (rice and eels), 
into which octopi and mussels are often introduced, 
is another dish of the town, and so is Menudos de 
Gallina (chicken tripe). 

The Marquis de Riscal, a red Rioja which I have 
previously alluded to, and which is a comparatively 
expensive wine, costs 4 pesetas a bottle. There 
are many light inexpensive wines of local growth, 
such as Soller, Castell del Remey, and Olzinellas, 
both red and white. 



Spain 



281 



The Clubs of Barcelona 

The principal clubs are the Circulo Equestre, 
Circulo del Liceo, Circulo de Cazadores, and Ateneo. 
The Circulo Equestre is in the Plaza Cataluna, and has 
dressing-rooms, bath-rooms, and a restaurant, which 
last is under the charge of the proprietors of the 
Maison Doree. The Circulo del Liceo is next the 
Opera House, and calls for no especial comment. 
The Circulo de Cazadores is comparatively new, chiefly 
frequented by the younger men of means. The 
Ateneo is not so select as the above three, but much 
more serious. It has a very good library and a good 
supply of papers, periodicals, &c., both Spanish and 
foreign. Of course gambling goes on in all the clubs 
more or less. There are besides various political clubs 
of no interest to a visitor. 

Port Bou 

There is a little restaurant at Port Bou, kept by 
Francisco Jaque, where you are likely, if you are 
making a stay to see the Pyrenees, to be better looked 
after than at the station on the French side of the 
frontier. There are rooms to be hired there. 

San Sebastian 

There are two restaurants attached to hotels in San 
Sebastian where really good cookery is assured. One 
is the restaurant of the Hotel du ^^ Paiais 
Palais on the Avenida de la Libertad, Avenida de la 
which is under the same direction l-i^ertad 
as the Regina Hotel at Biarritz, and the other is the 
restaurant of the Hotel Continental, continental 
which faces the bay. Some of the Pase6dela 
breakfast dishes at the Continental Concha 
are celebrated. The chef's Beignets de filets de sole 



282 l^he Goiinnef's Guide to Europe 

(fillets of sole fried in batter) are excellent, and some 
of his egg dishes, notably his QLufs Poches au Gratin^ 
are revelations to the Englishman, who believes that 
eggs can only be boiled, or poached in water, or fried. 
The restaurant of the Casino, I am told, is some- 
times a pleasant place with good cookery. This 
depends upon what play is in progress in 
the gaming - rooms. When the Court 
is at San Sebastian the gaming is of a mild descrip- 
tion. When there is no chance of offending the 
puritanism of Court circles, the " maximums " are 
raised to Monte Carlo limits, and the gamblers, who 
give no thought to the total of their bills, come to 
play at the most amusing town of the north of Spain. 
I, most unfortunately, ate a dinner at the Casino 
during one of the "off" periods, and I have never 
had sufficient pluck to experiment there again. On 
the occasion of my experiment I had been warned that 
I should not be well served, but I thought that the 
view of the town and the garden, with its picturesque 
crowd, would make amends for any dilatoriness. This 
was the menu of the dinner that I partook of, and, 
though wine was included in the repast, to conciliate 
the haughty Spaniard in dress-clothes who came and 
looked at me as though I were an "earth-man," I 
ordered a pint of Diamante : — 

Hors-d'oeuvre. 

PoTAGES. 

Creme de volaille. Consomme Riche. 

PoissoN, 
Langouste. Sauce Tartare. 

Entree. 
Salmis de Perdreaux au Jerez. 

Legumes, 
Tomates farcies Provengale. 



Sp, 



ain 283 



Ron. 
Filet de Boeuf Pique Broche. Salade. 

Entremets. 
Arlequin. Dessert 

I do not think that I ever had a worse-served 7 francs 
w^orth ot food. Once in my Hfe, at a Chicago hotel, 
I saw a negro waiter shaking up the bottle of bur- 
gundy I had ordered, just to amuse his brother " coons," 
and I felt a helpless exasperation as I watched him. 
The same feeling of voiceless anger was upon me as I 
watched the gentleman who was supposed at the San 
Sebastian Casino to keep me supplied with hot food, 
bring a dish from the interior of the cafe and then put 
it down on somebody else's table to cool while he 
strolled across the terrace to ask the military guardian 
at the gate how many people had paid for admission, 
or at what hour the band played, or what number had 
won the lottery. 

The Urbana in the Plaza Guipuzcoa La Urbana 
is a Spanish restaurant which prides 15 Plaza 
itself on its French cuisine. Guipuzcoa 

Of the cafes the bright Novelty in Novelty Cafe, 
the Alameda is the most amusing. Alameda 

The view from the terrace of the restaurant of 

Monte Ulia is so fine that the cookery ,^ ^ „,. 

r y , 1 . , 1 • 1 • 1 Monte Ulia 

or the establishment, which is always 

sufficiently good, becomes a secondary consideration 

on a clear spring morning. 

The San Sebastian Clubs 

The Real Club Nautico is built in the shape of a 
ship and commands a splendid view of the bay. In 
the hot weather it is very pleasant to dine on the deck 
of this ship ashore and listen to the music of the Casino 
band, the Casino being just behind the club-house. 



284 'The Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

The Cantabrico Club, of which the Cantabrico I 
Restaurant forms part, is in the Calle Miramar. The f I 
restaurant is the scene of many banquets. The 
Cantabrico Club has acquired a great stretch of land 
two miles away from the town on the Urumea River. 
Here a Country Club is to be formed, a club-house 
is to be built, and lawn-tennis courts, a golf course, 
and a pigeon-shooting enclosure are to be made. 

Senor Felix Dotres has made a golf course on his 
property round the Villa Zinza, and has formed a golf 
club of which many members are of the Spanish 
nobility. 

The Cercle Fran^ais on the first floor of the Cafe 
de la Marina is another of the San Sebastian clubs. 

Bilbao 

It is curious that at the great northern town of 
Spain there should be no first-class restaurants. The 
two best in the town are the Antiguo, in the Calle de 
Bidebarrieta, and the Moderno. Both of these boast 
what the Spaniards term Coc'ina Francesa^ which only 
means that \{ you make a request, as the English 
always do, the cook will fry your food with butter 
instead of oil. 

Of the clubs of Bilbao the Real Sporting Club is 
the most interesting to English visitors. Its floating 
pavilion in the bay is a two-storied house-boat with 
a shelter over the deck. 

PORTUGALETE 

At Portugalete, the port of Bilbao, there is a 
restaurant — good, as Spanish restaurants go — attached 
to the hotel of the place, the Inza, the proprietor 
of which is Dn. Manuel Calvo. The cook and 
the staff of waiters come from Lhardy's, the well- 



Spain 285 

known Madrid restaurant, and spend their summer by 
the seaside. The prices at this restaurant are high. 
Portugalete is only a summer resort. 

Madrid 

The Ritz is the newest hotel and the newest res- 
taurant in Madrid. It is under the management of 
the company that controls the Ritz The Ritz, Salon 
Hotel in London. The Ritz in Madrid delPrado 
has a palm court, a restaurant, and a dining-room, with 
a spacious terrace looking out on to the garden before 
the hotel. All the ground-floor rooms are decorated 
in pure Louis XVL style. The restaurant can seat 
75 people, the dining-room 150. The Ritz is on the 
Salon del Prado, near the picture gallery and the 
Bourse. 

" Go and dine at Lhardy's " is what everybody used 
to tell me when I asked which was the typical restaurant 
in Madrid, and passing through the capital on my way 
to Seville I dined one evening at the restaurant in the 
Carera San Jeronimo. On the ground floor of Lhardy's 
is a pastry cook's and a charcutier's Lhardy's 
shop. To reach the restaurant, which CareraSan 
is on the first floor, some narrow steps J^^o^^^o 
have to be climbed. I found myself in a medium- 
sized room with brown walls, crimson hangings to the 
doors, crimson-backed chairs, and a desk on which 
stood two silver-topped champagne bottles in silver 
wine coolers. The grey-whiskered maltre d'' hotel and 
the clean-shaven waiter who were the only occupants 
of the restaurant looked at me as though I were an 
intruder. I had come an hour before any dinner was 
expected, for though the dinner of the day at Lhardy's 
is supposed to be ready at 7 p.m., no one ever goes 
there to eat it till 8 p.m. The waiter thought he 
spoke English, but he was mistaken. I addressed him 



2 86 The Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

in French, which he indicated that he did not under- 
stand, but he grasped the fact that I wanted dinner. 
I was given weak consomme^ a very thin slice of very 
pale S2i\wiOn^ filet pique ^foie gras au gelee^ fowl and salad 
and an ice. It was very much the dinner one would 
expect as the 5s. table (Thote meal of a London hotel. 
The charge was 12 pesetas, about 9s. I drank a pint 
of good Spanish claret for which I was charged 2s., 
and a vile glass of Spanish brandy for which I was 
charged Qd. The service I must admit was excellent. 
To the stranger in any capital it always seems a 
pity that the principal restaurants always try to give 
their customers a French dinner and not a dinner of 
the dishes of the country. Below is the menu of a 
banquet given at Lhardy's in honour of Antonio 
Fuentes the bull-fighter. It cost the guests 25 
pesetas apiece. There is nothing to distinguish it, 
except its lack of originality, from any like feast in 
a French provincial town. 

Consomme Printanier Royal. 

Filets de Sole a la Normande. 

Tournedos a la Chateaubriand. 

Chaud-froid de Cailles. 

Chapons de France rotis. 

Petits Pois a I'Anglaise. 

Croute Groseille. 

Biscuits Glaces. 

Dessert. 

ViNS. 

Jerez. 

Bordeaux. 

Champagne frappe. 

Cafe et Liqueurs. 

The Cafe de Fornos in the Calle de Alcala is the 
other restaurant, outside those of the hotels, in which 



Spahi 287 

I have eaten a meal. It is quite a well-decorated series 
of rooms on the ground floor, and looks more like a 
club dining-room than a cafe. It seems cafe de Fornos, 
to be asleep during the greater portion ^^l^® ^^ Alcala 
of the day, a somnolent waiter in a cane chair being 
the one occupant of the rooms, but it wakes to life at 
meal-times and in the evening. The lunch I ate 
there cost me about 10 pesetas. The house has a 
lift, and on the first floor are cabinets particuUers 
where little supper parties are given after the theatre. 

The Madrilese dandy wishing to sup cafe Ingles, 
a deux generally patronises the Cafe Calle de Sevilla 
Ingles in the Calle de Sevilla, where the private rooms 
are said to be particularly well decorated. 

The Ideal Room is a recent addition to the Mad- 
rilene restaurants. The Spaniards de- The ideal Room, 
scribe it as La ultima palahra — the last Calle Alcala 
word, in such establishments. At La Vina P, so I 
am told by Spaniards, the best cookery 
the country is to be round. i he 
Casa de Botion ofif the Calle Mayor has been estab- 
lished for three centuries. Its specialty casa de Botion, 
is Spanish cookery. It corresponds to Calle Mayor 
the Cheshire Cheese in London. 

Most Anglo-Saxons passing through Madrid are 
contented to breakfast and dine at their hotel, and, 
before the advent of the Ritz, nine out Hotel de Paris, 
of ten Englishmen went to the Hotel Puerta del Sol 
de Paris. The meals served in the low-ceilinged 
restaurant, with its wonderful outlook and its army 
of white-clothed tables, are neither noticeably good 
nor noticeably bad. The Englishman who knows 
his way about Madrid on arriving at the Hotel 
de Paris has his bath, and then for breakfast orders 
Pescado Frito^ for all Spaniards are born fryers, and the 
chef at the Paris is a past-master with the frying-pan. 
If there are salmon steaks— the salmon of the Bay of 



288 T^he Gourmef s Guide to Siirope 

Biscay — he orders one of those to be fried, and he 
asks whether the great prawns caught off the coast 
at Cadiz are on the menu. Tortilla con jamon (omelette 
with Montanchez ham), Rcnones a la hrochet (kidneys 
on a skewer), and perhaps a slice of truffled turkey, 
complete his repast ; after which he lights a Breva 
de Cabanas or De Book and strolls to the Museo to 
look at the old masters. 

Parisiana is in the park of Mondoa, about twenty 
. . " minutes by train from the Puerta del 

Sol. It is open from April till Septem- 
ber. A Hungarian band plays during dinner, and the 
cookery is said to be good. 



Madrilene Clubs 

The Nuevo Club, in the Calle de Sevilla, is small 
Nuevo Club ^^^ ^^^7 select. The Haute Noblesse 

3Calle.de ' and the diplomatists form the greater 

Sevilla proportion of its members. An excel- 

lent dinner is obtainable there. 

The Gran Pena, in the Calle Alcala, is also select, 
GranPefia, and is largely used by military officers 

3 Calle Alcala ^nd by civil servants. The Gran 
Pefia admits temporary foreign members. 
Casino de l^h^Q. Casino de Madrid is the largest 

Madrid, Calle of the Madrid clubs. It has bought a 
de Alcala property in the Calle de Alcala, which 

has been converted into a most luxurious club-house. 
Tiro de Pichon, The pigeon-shooting club is at Casa 

Casa de Campo ^^ Campo, the Royal Park across the 
river to the west of Madrid. 



Spaifi 



Andalusian Cookery 



289 



Seville is the headquarters of Andalusian cookery, 
which has its own particular dishes. Sopa de cuarto 
de hora (soup of a quarter of an hour) has bread, 
onions, garlic, peas, mussels, pieces of fish amongst 
its ingredients. It is not a soup to essay until the 
palate has become attuned to Andalusian cookery. 
^opa de Almajas (mussel soup), 8opa de Ajo (garlic 
soup), and ^opa de Jamon Picado^ a clear soup, with 
ham and hard-boiled eggs cut into small dice, and 
added to it are some of the Andalusian soups. The 
Sopa al Jerez is a clear brown soup with sherry added 
to it. Of omelettes there are two kinds — one so light 
that it resembles a souffie ; the other a heavy omelette, 
to which potatoes or wild asparagus shoots are some- 
times added. This omelette is not at all a bad 
imitation of leather. Eggs poached in hot milk, and 
Huevos a la Flamen^a (Gipsy Eggs), are the best known 
of the egg dishes. The Gipsy Eggs have now become 
a common dish everywhere in Spain, but they were 
originally a Sunday dish at the Hotel de Madrid in 
Seville. No other kitchen in Spain had the recipe, 
and no one knows who gave it to the cook of the 
Madrid. Gipsy Eggs are cooked thus : a mixture of 
potatoes, boiled wild asparagus, boiled green peas,onions, 
a little garlic, ham, or bacon and tomatoes is fried 'u\ 
oil. The eggs are broken on to this mixture when it is 
well cooked and allowed to set lightly. The dish is 
served very hot. Fried fish is a Spanish delicacy, and 
nowhere in the world is the fish better cooked than 
in the fish-shops of Seville. It is the fashion after the 
theatre to buy 25 centimes worth of fried fish, which 
is wrapped in brown paper, taken home, and eaten 
with the fingers, a Manzanilla being the best accoir;- 
paniment. Reyes (a species of whitebait), Boccnromes 

* T 



290 T^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

(anchovies), Sardinas^ Pescado, Pescadilla^ Casson^ and 
Calamares (octopi) are amongst the various fish fried. 
A halfpenny bunch of radishes bought from the old 
woman with a basket who stands outside the shop 
is a very usual accompaniment to the fish. Any one 
who would sooner eat his fish on the spot can go 
into a room attached to the shop and there for a 
peseta and a half he can sup on olives, radishes, fried 
sole, and Manzanilla. Of Andalusian fish-dishes, 
Corvina con Guhantes (a coarse fish, stewed, with 
peas and a rich sauce), Salmonete al Homo (red mullet 
baked with slices of onion and tomatoes, oil and 
vinegar), are two of the best. Torija^ a dish chiefly 
eaten on Good Friday, consists of slices of bread 
dipped in sweet wine or sherry, fried in oil, and then 
covered with honey and water. Empanado de Jamon^ 
another dish in which sherry is used, is less outre 
than the above. A slice of ham is put between two 
slices of bread and dipped in sherry, and the sandwich 
thus made is dipped in egg and fried. Chicken tripe 
(lungs, livers, and combs of chicken stewed a la Mode 
de Caen) and the well-known Criadella^ if not Anda- 
lusian dishes, are cooked to perfection in Andalusia. 
Meriudo a la Flamen^a is tripe and trotters and Chorizo^ 
the sausage of the country, stewed together. Pre- 
served fruits and various forms of Turron (sugar paste) 
are specialties of Seville, the best shop for them being 
almost opposite to the lion's mouth letter-box in the 
Sierpes. 

Seville 

The cookery at the Seville hotels has been rather 
unjustly abused. The great rush of British travellers 
sets towards Seville about the time of the Fair and of 
Holy Week, and many of my compatriots are dis- 
appointed not to find a large caravanserai with an 
Austrian manager, a French chef^ a Swedish hail- 



Spain 291 

porter, and German waiters, telephones and motor-cars, 
and all the other conveniences which are gathered 
together in the monster modern hotel which takes 
no colour from the country it is in. Seville is Seville; 
no one is in a hurry there ; and if the guests do 
not like what is provided for them, their hosts are 
genuinely grieved, and that is all. Journeying to 
Seville just before Fair time, I once met an English 
couple of my acquaintance who were coming on 
more leisurely to the same destination. I asked them 
whether they had secured their rooms, for rooms are 
at a premium during the two great weeks of the 
year, and they said that they had not though they 
had written for them, but that they would be obliged 
to me if I would insist on the manager keeping for 
them two good bedrooms, a sitting-room, and a maid's 
room. The sitting-room should get the morning sun, 
the bedrooms must be quite quiet, and the maid's 
room must be near that of her mistress. Of course 
they might as well have asked for the moon and a 
few stars with which to trim it. 

I have stayed at both the hotels to which Anglo- 
Saxons go, the Madrid and the Paris, and have found 
the feeding very much on an equality. Hotel de Madrid, 
rather rough, intended to be the Haute Calle de Men- 
Cuhine Fran^ahc^ but falling consider- ^ez Nunez 
ably short in the attempt. The Hotel de Madrid has 
a great patio with palms and creepers as its adorn- 
ments, and this is a pleasant place in which to sit 
after dinner. All the chefs at the Madrid are, I am 
told, French. It should always be put to the credit 
of the kitchen of this hotel that Huevos a la Flamen^a 
were first cooked there. 

The feeding at the Hotel de Paris is rather more 
Spanish than that of its rival, and a national dish 
frequently makes its appearance on the bill of fare. 
On the last occasion on which I stayed at the Paris 



292 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

I was given a sleeping-room in the hotel's annexe, a 
house in the same little square, and found the interior 
Hotel de Paris, o^^^e house comparatively quiet, though 
Plaza del outside the noise of tram bells and mule 

Pacifico j^gjig ^^^ ^l^g other hundred and one 

sounds of the Sevilian night went on. merrily in the 
square, which must have been named Pacifico as a 
joke. 

I am told on very good authority that the cookery 
at the Hotel Paz is better than that in any other 
hotel in Seville, and that the Hotel Cecil has a chef 
who may bring the restaurant into favour. 

In the Calle de las Sierpes, Paul Bourguet pre- 
sides over El Pasaje de Oriente, quite a large restau- 
El Pasale de '^^^^ ^^^^ cafe, patisserie, and charcutier's 

Oriente, Calle shop, with an entrance in a street at 
de las Sierpes ^j^^ h2,z\i as well as in the narrow main 
alley. Paul has been manager and maitre (Thotel in 
several important restaurants in different parts of the 
world, and the cookery at El Pasaje de Oriente is 
both French and Spanish. I was taken to breakfast 
there by friends who had told Paul to be on his 
mettle. We went through the lower rooms of the 
restaurant, which were filled with Spaniards eating 
their almuerzo^ and into a quiet little room on the 
first floor looking down on to the busy Calle de las 
Sierpes. Paul had elected to show me the French 
side of the cookery of his establishment, and gave 
us a capital breakfast in which eggs and kidneys 
played a prominent part, and some admirable Cafe 
Special. Had he elected to give me a breakfast of 
purely Sevilian plats I should have been even more 
thankful to my hosts and to Paul ; but I had an 
excellent meal. A band plays in the cafe from 
7 P.M. to midnight. A table cChote lunch and dinner 
are served in the restaurant. The wise man going 
to the Oriente will send for Paul and tell him his 



Spain 293 

tastes and act on Paul's advice, for Paul is a sympa- 
thetic soul, and the love of his art comes before mere 
money-making. 

The Pasaje de las Delicias, also in the Sierpes, gives 
its clients modified Spanish cookery. It pag^je de las 
is the best restaurant at which to essay Delicias, Calle 
"quarter of an hour soup," or ^opa de las Sierpes 
Jamon Pica do. 

The Pasaje del Duque, in the place of that name, 
is the best restaurant in Seville for a p^saie del 
purely Spanish meal. The Arro'z a la Duque, Plaza 
Valenciana there is always excellent. ^®^ Duque 

The Bar International and the Cafe de Paris, both 
in the Campana, are the best of the cafes. 

The best fried fish shops are those of the Campana 
and the Calle Cerrageria. 

The restaurant which is most typical of Spain and 
of Seville is the Eritana, which is near the farthest 
end of the Paseo de las Delicias. the avenue where 
alK Seville drives of an afternoon. A 
white - walled house stands by the 
entrance to the garden, and this house contains the 
kitchen. The garden is almost a maze. One wanders 
amidst its luxurious vegetation, and here and there 
at turns of the little paths one comes upon an arbour 
with a table and seats in it. There is one summer- 
house, something like a Noah's ark, which is high 
above the flowers and hedges, and in this little house 
a duel with swords was once fought. A humorous 
notice now prohibits any such encounters. The 
Eritana is essentially a summer dining-place, and is 
frequented by all classes. The pretty ladies who drive 
out there on a hot summer evening may not all be 
accepted in " society," but they add greatly to the 
picturesqueness of the garden. Mussel soup, and 
kidneys a la Jercx and mint soup, and eggs Flamen^a^ 
are some of the favourite dishes at the Eritana ; but 



294 ^'^^^ Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

truth to tell, the rustic charm of the garden is a 
greater attraction than the Eritana cookery. It is 
well, however, not to grumble too much to the pro- 
prietor Manuel, generally known as Manolito, a small 
grey-haired Spaniard, who has a twinkle in his eyes. 
He says little, but what little he says is always to 
the point. One of the stories told of him is that a 
young Spaniard, who owed Manolito a large sum for 
dinners, brought some friends to dine, and fussed so 
much over the ordering of the meal that he annoyed 
Manolito. " I will bring you a dish, a most extra- 
ordinary dish, a dish you have never seen before," 
said Manolito, and disappeared, to return immediately 
with a large dish capped by a great cover. The dish 
was put before the over-particular Spaniard and the 
cover whisked off. On the dish lay the very long and 
much over-due bill. 

The Tabernas, or wine-rooms, are part of the 

life of the town. I generally go before dinner to 

the Pasaje de la Magdalena, which is 

Magdalena, almost opposite the Hotel de Madrid, 

Calle de Mendez to drink a glass of very liffht, very dry 

Nunez • ^ . ■' '' 

Manzanilla as an " appetiser." There 

is excellent sherry in the big casks which are named 

after celebrities, Wellington being duly honoured in 

this manner, and the prices are extraordinarily cheap. 

I have never been bold enough to try the little crabs 

and the snails which the Spaniards eat as a relish with 

their wine. 

Sevilian Clubs 

Of the clubs, the Circulo de Labradores in the 
Calle Sierpes is the most important. It has a good 
Circulo de reading-room with a supply of foreign 

Labradores, newspapers. Strangers properly intro- 

Calle Sierpes duced can become temporary members 
at a subscription of 20 pesetas a month, except 



Spain 295 

during the month of April, when the subscription is 

100 pesetas. 

The two most exclusive clubs are the Casino 

Sevilliano in the Plaza del Duque, casino, Plaza 

and the Casino Nuevo, more gene- ^^^ Duque 

rally known as the Casinillo, or Frambrera. The 

latter is the sportino: club of the city. . . 

T, 1-1-1 111 Casimllo 

It has a charmmg little club-house 

which is decorated with shooting and hunting pic- 
tures by the best artists of the modern school of 
Seville. During the Fair week the other clubs give 
rather formal balls in their pavilions on the ground, 
but the members of the sporting club engage all the 
best professional dancers in Seville to amuse their 
guests. The pavilion of this club, which is a plat- 
form lighted by many electric lights, is the centre 
at night of a vast assemblage of intensely interested 
spectators, for all the people who sell and buy at the 
Fair gather round to see the fine sight. On the high 
platform are the guests and hosts, and the girls in 
their bright-coloured garments dancing to the music 
of the guitars or sitting and clapping their hands to 
mark the beat. All round in the darkness are thou- 
sands of eager eyes in dusky faces watching intently 
every movement of the dancers. 

BOBADILLA 

The junction of the lines to Seville, Granada, and 
Algeceiras is Bobadilla, and there all trains wait for 
half-an-hour that the passengers may feed. The meal 
is quite a good sample of Spanish cookery, and it is 
fortunate that this is the case, for English travellers 
coming from Gibraltar generally have their first ex- 
perience here of the Spanish cuisine. Soup or eggs, 
according to the time of day, an entree, a joint, and 
fish form the menu of the usual meal. I kept a note 



296 l^he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

of a meal I ate at this railway buffet, and find that a 
omelette, one of the light ones, stewed beef and chick- 
beans, a ragout of veal, fish fried in butter, and cheese 
were the dishes I was given. The garlic I thought 
had been rubbed in with too heavy a hand, but other- 
wise the meal was excellent. A very beautiful Anda- 
lusian used to be the presiding Hebe at the bar, but 
this pleasant sight to travellers' eyes has now vanished. 
Probably the pretty lady has married and retired. 

Granada 

The great delicacy of Granada are the Traveles 
hams, chestnut-fed and snow-cured. They are ob- 
tainable only in the mountain town of Traveles, near 
Granada, and the pig-breeders are so jealous of possible 
imitations that every genuine ham is branded with 
the corporation stamp of the town. Grilled trout 
from the adjacent river Darro are delightful eating, 
and the flavour of the small wild strawberries from 
the Alhambra gardens is as pleasant as those of 
the Alps. 

The Alhambra Palace Hotel, which is quite close 
to the Alhambra, is the newest hotel in Granada, and 
The Alhambra is said to be up to date in its cookery. 
Palace Jt is owned by a large landed proprietor 

of the province, the Duque de San Pedro, and it was 
opened by King Alfonso on New Year's Day 1910. 

The Washington Irving and the Siete Suelos Hotels, 
the two houses always patronised by the British and 
Washington Americans en voyage^ before the Al- 

Irving hambra Palace Hotel was built, are 

opposite to each other near the Alhambra, and are both 
under the same management. The cookery at these 
hotels is sometimes quite good, for Spain ; sometimes 
it is not. When I last stayed at the Washington 
Irving a decade ago the two hotels were in one of 



Spain 297 

their indifferent cooking states. Now I am told both 
hotels are catering very well for their visitors, stimu- 
lated, no doubt, by the rivalry of the new hotel. 
Don Jose Nunoz, the proprietor of the Washington 
Irving and the Siete Suclos, is a great authority on 
ibex shooting, and is also a notable gourmet, and any 
one who has the pleasure of carrying an introduction 
to him will learn of all the sporting possibilities of the 
country, and also of all the local plats worth tasting. 
The cookery of the Siete Suelos is considered 

to be more distinctivelv Spanish than „, 
, c • -11 " Tlie Siete Suelos 

that or Its neighbour. 

Jerez 

At Jerez I was first made aware of the fact that 
the ver)^ best Dutch cheese of the day is still imported 
into Spain. The great Duke of Alba first sent a 
Oueso de Bola as a present to all his friends, and 
since that time the Spaniards have always eaten the 
round red cheeses and have always insisted that they 
shall be the best of their kind. This is rather a 
curious instance of the conservatism which is so 
typical of Spain. The Hotel de los Cisnos, the hotel 
of the town, is good and clean, and for 8 to 10 pesetas 
a day the food and lodging is all that a traveller in 
Spain can expect. This is a Sunday menu showing 
what the Cisnos can do : — 

Consomme de Quenelles a la Royal. 

Filetes de Tenguados a la Tutus. 

Chuletas de Cordero a la Inglesa. 

Pechugas de Polios a la Suprema. 

Perdices al jugo. 

Ensalada Rusa. 

Esparragos de Aranjuez, salsa blanca. 

Mantecados de Vainilla y Fresa. 

Postres variados. 



298 T'he Gou?^mefs Guide to Europe 



The Clubs of Jerez 

The clubs of Jerez are the Casino National in the 
Calle Larga, the leading club of the town, and the 
Casino Jerezano, the Agricultural Club, also in the 
Calle Larga. In both these clubs, as in all Spanish 
clubs, mild roulette is played, especially at Fair time. 
A Lawn-tennis Club, a Polo Club, and the Jerez Gun 
Club complete the list. At all these clubs an English- 
man having proper introductions is welcomed as an 
honorary, or a temporary, member. It was at the 
Jerez Gun Club that King Alfonso won the hearts of 
the makers of sherry. A big challenge cup had been 
shot for. It was filled with wine, and the king, who 
had been shooting, was about to drink to the town 
and the winner, when looking into the cup he saw 
that the liquid was champagne. " Take this away," 
he said, "and bring it to me full of sherry. I will 
drink to the town of Jerez in its own good wine." 



Cadiz 

Fish is the contribution of Cadiz to the kitchen. 
There is a small variety of sole, called locally Asad'ia^ 
which, fried dry, is a very toothsome morsel. Fried red 
mullet is a local dish much appreciated. The prawns 
of Cadiz are very large and very fine. The shell- 
fish are better avoided, for the drains of the town 
empty into the bay. 

The dining-room of the Hotel de Francia is the 
restaurant of Cadiz. The hotel was built by the 
Hotel de present proprietor with money won in 

Francia, Plaza the lottery. The white marble patio 
de Mma gives the hotel an appearance of dazz- 

ling cleanliness, and the house is in fact exceedingly 



Spain 299 

well managed. The "pension" of the hotel is 15 
pesetas a day. The cook knows his art, and when a 
private dinner is ordered everything is really excellent. 

There are no restaurants in Cadiz not attached to 
hotels. The establishments which call cerveceria 
themselves restaurants are really cafes, ingles, Plaza de 
The Cerveceria Ingles, however, will ^^ Constitution 
give luncheons and dinners to a special order, and 
they are very good — for Cadiz. 

About three miles outside the town, on the line of 

the tramway, is the Balneario. This is a new Casino 

and bathino; establishment built on the 

1 ^1 • 1 r ^u The Balneario 

sands some tiiu'ty yards rrom the sea. 

Luncheons and dinners are served at the usual hotel 
prices, and are good. This establishment is a new 
departure for the south of Spain, where it is unusual 
to see ladies and their families abroad during the day- 
time. The site facing the Atlantic is very healthy. 
It is proposed to build an hotel adjoining the Casino, 
and do much towards improving the cuisine, hoping 
to attract visitors from all parts of Spain. 



The Cadiz Clubs 

The Casino Gaditano is the chief club in Cadiz. 
This is not a club as we understand it, since no meals 
are served there. It is, however, a social centre, and 
here take place dances and balls and entertainments to 
foreign royalties, &c. At certain periods of the year 
roulette is played there. When the Governor changes, 
which is often, roulette is generally stopped by a new 
order. After a short interval, however, the influence 
of the members of the club proves more powerful 
than the Governor's order, and play recommences. 



300 'The Gowmefs Guide to Stir ope 



San Lucar 



I 



San Lucar, at the mouth of the Seville River, 
opposite Cadiz, is the favourite watering-place of the 
Seville world. There are fine sands. During the 
summer months the Cisnos Hotel of Jerez opens a 
branch at San Lucar. San Lucar is considered the 
most healthy and sunny spot on this coast, and there 
has long been talk of building a good hotel there by a 
Belgian syndicate. A good hotel would certainly 
prosper. The king's uncle has a palace there, built 
on account of the reputation of San Lucar as a health 
resort. 

Algeceiras 

There is an octagon corner in the dining-room of 

the Reina Christina with a look-out on to a sub-tropical 

warden which is pleasantly remembered 
Reina Christina V n ^ u j- j^u n^u 

by all who have dmed there. i ne 

hotel has an English manageress, who prides herself 
on obtaining primeurs for her clients, and a French 
chef. The fish here is always beautifully fresh, being 
just caught before going to the cooking-pot or frying- 
pan. The red mullet and the fresh sardines are two of 
the favourite fish dishes. A nev/ wing has recently 
been added to the hotel. There is room, however, in 
Algeceiras for another hotel, the prices of which would 
fit the pockets of the official world of Gibraltar. A 
Casino has been built, by a French syndicate, close to 
the Reina Christina, and an endeavour is being made 
to give Algeceiras all the amusements to be found in 
the towns of the Riviera. 

RONDA 

Ronda is destined to be a refuge for the soldiers 
and officials of Gibraltar when they feel the weather 



Spain 301 

too hot to be borne. The Station Hotel has always 
been a clean and homely little hostelry, but a new- 
big hotel, the Reina Victoria, has now TheReina 
been built, designed by the architect victoria 
who made the plans for the Reina Christina at 
Algeceiras, and opened under the same management. 
The Reina Victoria is said by people who have stayed 
there to have the pleasant country-house atmosphere 
which is one of the great attractions of the Reina 
Christina. 

Malaga 

Some day or another, " to-morrow " as Spaniards 
say, Malaga is going to be a fashionable resort 
for invalids, a rival to Mentone, San Remo, and 
Bordighera, but its dust must be conquered and its 
hotels and restaurants must improve The Roma, 
before the rich Enolish and Americans Alameda 
go to Malaga to spend their gold. The Roma Hotel 
has the nearest approach to a good dining-place. 
At the Nuevo Victoria, in the Calle ^uevo Victoria, 
Marques de Larios, the cookerv is Calle Marques 
entirely Spanish. The prices here are ^^^'^^los 
very reasonable. 

The Loba, the Imperial, and the Ingles are the 
cafes for which a good word may be said. Food is 
obtainable at all of these. 



Malaguenean Clubs 

The Circolo Malagueiio, in the Cortina de Muelle, 
is the best of the clubs of Malaga. Temporary 
membership is extended to properly introduced 
strangers, the subscription being 10 pesetas a month. 
The Circolo Mercantil and the Liceo are other 
clubs. 



X 

PORTUGAL 

Lisbon — Lisbon Clubs — Cintra — Estoril — Cascaes— Oporto — - 
The Clubs of Oporto — Bussaco — Pampilhosa. 

My acquaintance with the cookery of Portugal is so 
limited that I will not attempt to lay down the law 
on the subject. British ladies who have lived for 
some time in the country always add some of the 
Portuguese soups to their book of recettes, and some 
of the Portuguese egg dishes, such. as " Dominicans," 
are excellent. The Poularde Albufera^ which holds a 
very proud position in the Haute Cuisine Fran^a'ise^ is 
really a Portuguese dish. When, during the Penin- 
sular War, the French troops sacked the Convent of 
Albufera, part of their spoil was the book of recettes 
kept by the cook. This volume, carried to Paris, was 
looked at by one of the great chefs of the day, and 
the Chicken of Albufera became a highly commended 
French dish. 

Lisbon 

There are good hotels to stay at in Lisbon, and there 
are restaurants in plenty, but to try the cookery of some 
ol" the tovy^n eating-houses a gourmet requires to have 
his taste educated up to, or down to, the Portuguese 
standard. 

At the Braganza, a little club of bachelor Britons 
Braganza, Rua have been in the habit of dining to- 
Victor Cordon gether and ordering their dinner in 

advance, and this is a fair sample of what the steady- 

303 



Portugal 303 

going but very comfortable hostelry can do when it 
chooses : — 

Madeira R'lche. Queues de Boeuf. Creme Clamart. 

Petits Souffles Desir. 
Johannisberger Saumon Sauce Genevoise. 

[Claus). Selle de Presale a la Montpensier. 

Poularde a I'Ambassadrice. 
Chateau Giscours. Pain de foies gras en Bellevue. 

O 

. Punch au Kirsch, 
Asperges Sauce Mousseuse. 
George Goulet. Pintades TrufFees. 

Salade Japonaise. 
Timbales a la Lyon d'Or. 
Porto 181 5. Glaces a la Americaine, 

Petits fours. 
Dessert. 
Liqueurs. Cafe. 

A good breakfast of two ample plats only and a long 
and sound dinner are served daily at 1 1 a.m. and 7 p.m. 
The price is moderate, being about 900 reis and 11 00 
respectively. (It is well to remember that the ex- 
change varies considerably, and it is therefore difficult 
to give the equivalents in sterling for the prices quoted, 
but 4500 to 5200 reis may be roughly taken at ^i 
sterling.) The proprietor is M. Sasetti, who is ably 
supported by his manager and by a head waiter named 
Celestino, a most useful person in every way. 

Wines, spirits, and liqueurs of foreign origin are 
expensive at the Braganza, as they are everywhere 
else, owing to the high custom tariff; but the local 
wines, amongst which may be cited Collares, Collares 
Branco, Serradayres white and red, Bucellas, are 
all good and cheap table wines. Lombadas (from 
Madeira) and Monte Banzao (from a spring in the 
pine-woods west of Cintra) are the best table-waters. 

I stayed myself at the Avenida Palace Hotel, and 



304 T^he Goiirmefs Guide to Europe 

found the cookery there neither good enough to praise 
nor bad enough to condemn. Lisbon has half-a-dozen 
The Avenida restaurants, but I did not experiment in 

Hotel, Rua do them all. My first visit was to the Cafe 
Principe Tavares, where Senor Calderia is the 

host. The restaurant is in the Rua Largo do S. 
CafeTavares Roque. The front room is cream- 
Rua Largo do coloured and has large mirrors on its 
s. Roque walls. Behind this big room is a nest 

of rakish-looking little private rooms with ground- 
glass doors. In these rooms the young bloods of 
Lisbon revel from midnight until the small hours. 
For their convenience there is a back door in the Rua 
das Gaveas. There is a good table dViote lunch served 
for 600 reis, and a table d'hote dinner for 800 reis. I 
went to the Tavares at lunch-time, and found that I 
was entitled for my money to hors cPa^uvre^ three 
other dishes selected from the bill of fare, cheese and 
fruits. I selected Anguilles a la Portngaise as one of 
my plats^ hoping that it might be a national dish. 
The eels were just like any other stewed ones, with a 
thick brown sauce. 

In search of the national .dishes I dined at the Leao 
d'Ouro in the Rua do Principe kept by Antonio 
Leao d'Ouro, Monteiro, and found it a rather bare 

Rua do Principe but perfectly clean room with big pic- 
tures of river scenery and game in heavy wooden 
frames on the green walls, and a pleasant suggestion 
of Bohemianism in the company, for most of the men 
who sat at the fables of bent wood and marble looked 
as though they were men of the pen, or brush, or of 
the sock and buskin. A great golden lion rampant on 
the wine counter explains the name of the house. 
The meals of the Golden Lion are a la carte. I 
knew that Sopa de Camarao^ a bisque of prawns, is a 
specialty of the house, so I ordered this as my soup, 
put my finger on to the fish which had the strangest 



I 



'Portugal 305 

name, and appealed to the waiter to select for me a 
typical Portuguese dish as my meat. He suggested 
Dobrada — at least the name sounded like " Dobrada " 
— and I assented. The soup was excellent. The un- 
known fish tasted like mackerel, and the Dobrada was a 
mixture wherein were tripe and bacon and scraps of 
fowl and many beans. My bill for soup, fish, Dobrada^ 
cheese, a pint of Bucellas, coffee, and a liqueur of Bene- 
dictine was 850 reis, which sum is less than 4s. Lisbon 
is quite a cheap city \n which to lunch and dine. 

The Cafe Suisso, close to the central railway station, 
is the most crowded in Lisbon, and towards nightfall 
it is the principal haunt of Portugal's too numerous 
politicians. The cook knows how to dress a kid 
(always a better dish than mutton in Portugal), but 
his efforts are not otherwise remarkable. At the 
Estreila d'Ouro, in the Rua Bella da Rainha (popularly 
called the Rua da Prata), one can sit in a cabinet and 
eat all one wants of the national dishes a la carte. 

The Rendezvous des Gourmets in the Rua Aurea 
is beloved of certain English residents ; but it is more 
a confeitaria than a regular restaurant. Marques 
Marques in the Chiado (re-named the Rua Garrett 
Rua Garrett) is another confeitaria^ which is the princi- 
pal resort for afternoon tea.' Strangely enough, it is 
at Marques that one gets the most satisfactory whisky- 
and-soda in all Lisbon. 

The Clubs of Lisbon 

The Royal British Club of Lisbon is a most success- 
ful institution. It has its club-house in the Rua de 
S. Francisco de Paula, and there is a British Club 
splendid view over the Tagus from its Rua de S. Fran- 
windows. The British Minister is its ^^^^° ^^ ^^^^^ 
President, the British Consul its Vice-President. It 
has billiard and reading rooms and a library. The 

u 



3o6 I' he Gourmefs Guide to Sw^ope 

club gives dances and holds a reception on the night 
of King George's birthday. The club is most 
hospitable to visitors. A travelling visitor can be 
introduced by a member and made free of the club for 
a fortnight. Should such a member wish ^ to make 
use of the club for a longer period, the committee 
may elect him as a visiting member on payment of a 
small monthly subscription. 

The Gremio Litterario and the Jockey Club are 
the Portuguese clubs of the city. 

CiNTRA 

There is little scope for gourmandise of any kind 
at Cintra, the life there being of the simplest. No 
one ever thinks of asking a friend out to dinner, 
for the food at all the hotels is very plain, and the 
amusement of the little town in the evening consists 
in bridge and poker parties formed after dinner. 

ESTORIL 

At Estoril, which is the Brighton of Portugal, a 
bright little place just outside the mouth of the river, 
Grand Hotel, there are three good hotels — the Grand, 
Estoril owned and managed by Mons. Estrade, 

where the cuisine is French and is to be recommended ; 
the Italic, owned by an Italian, which is never without 
English guests ; and the more Portuguese Royal. A 
Hotel d'ltalie, casino is attached to the first-mentioned 
Estoril hotel, and the little wheel is generally 

spinning there. In Portugal, however, no one knows a 
month in advance whether gambling will be permitted or 
will not be permitted in the various casinos. Ministries 
in Portugal have fits of the Nonconformist conscience, 
like Ministries in Great Britain, but sometimes officials 
are kindly blind to what is going on under their noses 
even though it be against the strict letter of the law. 



Portugal 307 

Cascaes 

Cascaes is the twin town of Estoril. Estoril con- 
tains the villas which used to belong to the royal family 
and to the rich merchants of Lisbon. Cascaes chiefly 
consists of the old fort which served as the king's palace, 
a little fishing village, the palatial Casa O'Neil, and 
various clubs for outdoor sports. There are acres of 
lawn-tennis grounds round the Cascaes The Cascaes 
Sports Club, and the pigeon-shooting ^1^^ 
ground on a rocky promontory jutting out into the 
sea is probably the most picturesque in the world. 

Oporto 

Oporto, so far as the resident British are concerned, 
is a town of clubs and not of restaurants. I was 
warned not to essay the cookery of the hotels, and 
the hospitality of my hosts left me no opportunity 
of doing so even had I been so minded. 

The Oporto Clubs 

The Factory is a relic, a very pleasant and very 

hospitable relic, of the days when Englishmen going 

to a foreign land expected to stay there 

A %. ur I J 1 The Factory 

many years, and established wherever 

they sqttled in any numbers a social centre, a fortress 

of British ideas and British comfort. The Factory, 

which stands in the street which used to be called 

the Road of the Englishmen, but which was renamed 

out of compliment to a Portuguese hero, is a very solid 

building. It has a vaulted basement, walls as thick 

as those of any castle, and a granite staircase which 

has no visible supports climbs to the first story. 

The Factory is part institute, part club. It has a 

good library, to the enjoyment of which all British 

born are welcome. The club is supported by a 



3o8 I' he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

certain number of the British port wine firms, of 
which one member represents the firm in the club. 
The entrance fee is as high as that of the British 
Yacht Squadron, and each member on joining lays 
down a pipe of vintage port for future consump- 
tion, and gives some wine for present drinking. No 
other club or association in the world has such a 
cellar of port, and the wine is treated with the 
deference due to it. The dining-room is a fine 
apartment, from one wall of which a Georgian 
worthy looks down with entire approval upon his 
successors. After dinner an adjournment is made 
to another great hall down the centre of which runs 
a long table of splendid mahogany. The bottles of 
port are placed on the shining wood, and the wine 
is enjoyed in an atmosphere free from all the gross 
odours of food. " And the smokers ? " I asked the 
hospitable gentleman who showed me the Factory. 
The smokers, I was told, sit like the sinners that they 
are, when port is on the table, at one end of the long 
table, while those who appreciate the wine so wisely 
that they forego a cigar sit at the other end. 

The British Club at Oporto is a charming and 
most hospitable knot of Britons in a house beautiful. 

^^ ^ . ^, , I cannot believe that I owe an apolosy 

The Oporto Club , , ^ i r n i t -^ 

to a body or good rellows, but i was 

told by a lady who visited Oporto soon after I did 
that some of the members were hurt that the best 
I could say concerning the club in an article I wrote 
in the Dally Mail was that it was " clean." I really 
said many appreciative things as well, and if the 
Oporto Club men know how delightful it is for a 
man who has spent weeks in Spanish and Portuguese 
hotels, where cleanliness is not a prominent virtue, 
to be brought into a house as fresh and airy and well- 
ordered and well-groomed as the British Club is, they 
will pardon my having rejoiced in the cleanliness of 



Portugal 309 

their home and of having placed the virtue of cleanli- 
ness even before the hospitality of my hosts. From 
the little garden of the club, w^hich is upon the roof 
of another house, one looks from a surrounding of 
flowers down on to the brown roofs of the town, and 
one sees the Douro winding all silver between its hills 
out to the sea. The cook of the British Club is an 
artist, and I was introduced there to a dish of fresh 
lampreys, that rich and tempting fish, a surfeit of 
which once killed a British kino-. 



to- 



BUSSACO 

Of the feedino; at the Hotel of Bussaco I cannot 

speak from experience, but I was very generally told 

in Portugal that M. Weissman, the „ „ ^ , 

^ , . 1 -T^i I 1 Bussaco Hotel 

proprietor, has a good cook, i he hotel 

itself is a curiosity in architecture. A portion of it 
was originally a convent, and the new building was 
intended at one time to be a royal residence, and at 
another period was to have been the centre of a Portu- 
guese Monte Carlo. 

Pampilhosa 

The buffet at Pampilhosa, the important junction 
station on the Lisbon-Oporto line, is Buffet, 
much above the average of railway Pampilhosa 
dining-places in Portugal. I believe that its manager 
is a partner of M. Weissman mentioned above. 



XI 

SWITZERLAND 



The Food of the Country — Lucerne — Basle — Bern — Geneva — 
St. Moritz — Davos. 



The Food of the Country 

Switzerland is a country of hotels and not of 
restaurants. In most of the big towns the hotels 
have restaurants attached to them, and in some of 
these a dinner ordered a la carte is just as well cooked 
as in a good French restaurant, and served as well ; 
in other restaurants attached to good hotels the table 
(Vhote dinner is served at separate tables at any time 
between certain hours, and this is the custom of most 
of the restaurants in most of the better class of hotels. 
There is in every little mountain-hotel a restaurant ; 
but this is generally used only by invalids, or very 
proud persons, or mountaineers coming back late from 
a climb. There is no country in which the gourmet 
has to adapt himself so much to circumstances and in 
which he does it, thanks to exercise and mountain 
air, with such a Chesterfieldian grace. I have seen 
the Englishman who, at the very excellent restau- 
rants of the Schweitzerhof or National at Lucerne, 
ate gloomily a perfectly cooked little meal which 
he had ordered a la carte on the day of his arrival 
in Switzerland, sitting smiling in peace two days 
later eating the table d^hote meal at a little table 



Switzerland 3 1 1 

in the restaurant of one of the hotels at Lauzanne or 
Vevey, Montreux or Territet, after a walk along the 
lake side or up the mountain to Caux, and four days 
after taking his seat at a long table at Zermatt or the 
Riffel Alp, talking quite happily to perfect strangers 
on either side of him, and eating the menu through 
h'om end to end, more conscious of the splendid 
appetite a day on the glaciers had given him than of 
what he is devouring. Switzerland entirely demora- 
lises the judgment of a gourmet, for its mountain air 
gives it undue advantages over most other countries, 
and an abundant appetite has a way of paralysing all 
the finer critical faculties. 

At one past period all hotels in Switzerland were 
" run " on one simple, cheap plan. There were meals 
at certain hours, there was a table in the big room for 
the English, another for the Germans, and another for 
mixed nationalities. If any one came late for a meal, 
so much the worse for him or her, for they had to 
begin at the course which was then going round. If 
travellers appeared when dinner was half over, they 
had to wait till it was quite finished ; and then, as a 
favour, the maitre d'hotcl would instruct a waiter to 
ask the cook to send the late comers in something to 
eat, which was generally some of the relics of the 
just-completed feast, the odours of which still hung 
about the great empty dining-hall. 

Lucerne 

It is a matter of history that Mons. Ritz, the 

Napoleon of hotels and restaurants, at a critical time 

of his career put all his spare money 

. ^ ^1 1 r t • .u Ti . 1 Hotel National 

mto the purchase or a share m the Hotel 

National, and the first move he made in management 

was to establish a first-class restaurant in the hotel. 

Croakers had prophesied that a first-class restaurant 



312 T^he Gourmefs Guide to Europe ^H 

in Switzerland would be a failure because tourists 
would not pay restaurant prices, but these pre- 
dictions were falsified, and the restaurant of the 
National became and has remained one of the best 
restaurants attached to hotels in any country in 
Europe. 

Whether some one else was making history at the 

„ , . Schweitzerhof at the same tim.e in the 

Schweitzerhof t i i i i 

same way 1 do not know, but the two 

hotels have run neck and neck in the excellence of 

their restaurants. 

The Palace, a new hotel, is quite in the front rank, 

and its restaurant can be classed with the restaurants 

„^ „ , I have mentioned above. A 2;ourmet, 

XXl6 F3ilclC6 

on whose taste I can depend, and who 
was last summer at Lucerne, writes thus to me : 
" The Schweitzerhof and the new Palace I place on 
a par, and the restaurants of each are quite good. The 
restaurant of the National I place ' hors concours ' as 
being in a class by itself. It is managed by a maitre 
d^hotel^ John Owens, who has been there for years 
and years, and whom everybody knows. I lunched 
yesterday at the restaurant, and found the Ravioli 
Napolitaine and the Pilaff de Langouste masterpieces. 
I should sum up the success of the restaurant of the 
National in one word — John." 

I usually find that any one who has stayed at Lucerne 
has a good word to say for his particular hotel res- 
taurant. I was once at Lucerne during race week, 
and was doubtful whether I should find a room vacant 
at either of the hotels at which I usually stay. A 
charming old priest, who was a fellow-voyager, sug- 
gested to me that I should come to a little hotel 
hard by the river ; and there, though the room I was 
given was of the very old continental pattern, the 
dinner my friend ordered for himself and for me was 
quite excellent. I have breakfasted at the buffet at 



Switzerland 313 

the station and found it very clean, and the simple 
food was well cooked. There is a restaurant at the 
Kursaal, but I have never had occasion to breakfast 
or dine there. 

Basle 

In Northern Switzerland some of the towns have 
restaurants which are not attached to hotels, and Basle 
has quite a number of them, though the interest 
attaching to most of them is due to the quaintness 
of the buildings they are in or the fine view to be 
obtained from them rather than from any particular 
excellence of cookery or any surpris- Kunsthalle, 
ingly good cellar. The restaurant in Steinenberg 
the Kunsthalle, for instance, is ornamented by some 
good wall paintings ; and by the old bridge there is 
a restaurant with a pleasant terrace 
overlooking the river. There is a ^^ ^ 

good cellar at the Schutzenhaus, and there is music 
and a pretty garden 'as an attraction to take visitors 
out to the Summer Casino. 

I have always found the meals at the Hotel de 
rUnivers sufficiently satisfactory not to encourage 
me to essay eating in unknown quarters. 

Bern 

Of the Bern restaurants much the same is to be 
said as of the Basle ones. Historical paintings are 
thought more of than the cook's de- Kornhauskeller, 
partment. The Kornhauskeller, in the Kornhausplatz 
basement of the Kornhaus, is a curious place and 
worth a visit for a meal. At the Schanzli, on a 
rise opposite the town, from the terrace of which 
there is a splendid view, and where there is a summer 
theatre, there is a cafe-restaurant, and another on the 
Garten, a hill whence another fine view is obtainable. 



314 T^'^^ Gourmet's Guide to Europe 



Geneva 

Geneva is a capital which has few first-class restau- 
rants. There is little fault to find with the restaurants 
attached to the hotels, and most travellers dine where 
they sleep, but the hotels of Geneva were mostly built 
in the days when a restaurant was not a necessity in a 
hotel, and the table d'hote dinner of the day forms the 
meal that nine out of ten visitors to Geneva eat at 
their hotel. At the National, which is the hotel at 
which I usually stay, I have found little cause to 
grumble at meal times, though I have usually dined 
either at the Restaurant du Nord or at the Kursaal 
Restaurant, if the latter happens to be managed for 
the season by some good restaurateur. 

The Restaurant du Nord is on the first floor of a 
house on the Grand Quai, a cafe being on the ground 

Restaurant ^^o^'' ^^"^"^ ^^e windows of the res- 

du Nord, taurant there is a pleasant view over 

Grand Quai ^j^^ ^^^ ^^ ^]^^ \^q ^^^ ^-j^^ Rhone 

rushing out of it, the two bridges, and the little island 
on which the poplars grow. The house outside is 
white-faced up to its second storey. The restaurant 
consists of two salons, both open in summer, but only 
one, the smaller of the two, a red room with a parquet 
floor, being used in winter. The Nord has an air of 
distinction ; its meals are a la carte ; and its proprietor, 
tall and wearing pince-nez, has the grand air that so 
well becomes a successful restaurateur. The bill of 
fare of the dishes and the wine list are both under one 
cover. The list of dishes is a comparatively short one, 
but the cookery is undeniably good. The Nord is an 
excellent restaurant at which to sample the various 
fishes of the lake, for fresh fish is the strong point in 
the cookery of Geneva. The Feras is a white-fleshed 
fish, which is like a herring, and its liver is as prized 



Switzerland 3 1 5 

as that of a mullet. The l^otte is a fish locally in great 
favour. The trout are just as palatable as they were 
when Cambaceres used to import them into France 
for his suppers. The cooks at the Nord make of perch 
an excellent dish, and the king of the lake fish, the 
great char, the Ombre-chevalier, is generally on the 
bill of fare at the Nord. An Ombre-chevalier a la 
Gcnevoise is a noble dish. Petites tru'ites a la Voltaire 
and Feras a la Bonne Tante are two admirable local 
dishes. The Nord has a good cellar of Swiss wines, 
commencing with Mont d'Or at fr. 5 a bottle, and 
Clos de Rocher at fr. 4 a bottle. The Grand Fine 
Champagne of the house at fr. 1.50 a glass is to be 
recommended. 

The Kursaal on the northern side of the lake has 
a restaurant on its broad illuminated terrace. The 
Kursaal contains the Variety Theatre Kursaal 
of Geneva, but the restaurant with its Restaurant 
American bar, and the Cercle des Etrangers, is divided 
off from the rest of the establishment, and has a sepa- 
rate entrance. It is wise to find out who is the res- 
taurateur who is in charge of the Kursaal Restaurant. 
I have known it to be at a low ebb as a dining-place, 
but when last I was in Geneva I found it in high 
favour with the best class of visitors to the town, for 
Negresco had come from the Casino Municipal at 
Nice to take charge during the summer of the Kursaal 
Restaurant, and had brought his head cooks and his 
mahres eVhotel with him. 

There are two summer restaurants in the public 
gardens of Geneva, one in the Jardin Anglais, and the 
other in the Jardin des Bastions, the park opposite the 
theatre. At both a cheap table cVhote meal is served at 
midday. I have never lunched at the Jardin Anglais 
kiosk, but I have been much amused by the company, 
consisting largely of students, who eat their midday 
meal in summer at the glass house in the Jardin des 



3i6 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

Bastions. Two francs is the price of the midday 
meal at this restaurant, and it serves a supper at 
fr. 2.50, commencing at six o'clock. 

The Casino in the Eaux Vives Park, a short drive 
or tramw^ay journey out of Geneva, is a little grey 
Casino, chateau with a slate roof, round which 

Eaux Vives ^3^5 been constructed a broad wooden 

terrace, which in summer is illuminated with many 
little lamps, and is used as a dining place. The view 
from this terrace of the lake, through a vista of big 
trees and over the sloping lawns, is exceedingly pretty. 
Just behind the chateau is a wooden theatre, and a 
great shed which serves as a Brasserie. An ornamental 
chalet and a little kiosk, where glasses of mineral 
water are sold, complete the buildings. There are 
five or six tennis courts in the park, and in summer 
the Eaux Vives is an amusing place to lunch at or to 
dine at. The prices at the restaurant of the table 
d''hote meals are fr. 3.50 for breakfast, and fr. 5 for 
dinner. A 2-franc table d''hdte meal is offered by the 
Brasserie. Both the Casino and the Brasserie are 
closed in winter. 

AFTER DINNER 

The after-dinner amusements of Switzerland are as 
simple as the Swiss dinners are. Where there is a 
Casino there is usually a variety performance after 
dinner, and most of the large towns have a theatre 
which is open in the winter, and which is run much 
on the same lines as are the municipal theatres in 
French country towns. The theatre at Geneva aspires 
to higher things than do most of the Swiss theatres, 
though it is open in the winter months only. Great 
stars visit it with their companies. I have heard 
opera very well sung there, and have seen well-played 
comedies. The Kursaal contains the variety theatre 
of the town, and the performances continue until 



Switzerland 3 1 7 

a very late hour, with long intervals, to give the 
audience an opportunity of playing at the games of 
chance in the main hall. At the theatre in the Eaux 
Vives Park operettas and variety shows succeed each 
other. In the town curious little music halls spring 
up each spring in unlet shops and big rooms, but they 
rarely last for longer than one summer season. 

Towns on the Lake 

On the borders of the Lake of Geneva there are 
many good hotels, though some of the best of them 
pick and choose their visitors, and writing before- 
hand does not mean that a room will be found for 
a bachelor who only intends to stay a few days. 
The better the hotel the better the restaurant, and 
if the haughty hotel porter at the station says " No " 
very courteously when you look appealingly at him 
and ask if a room has been kept for you, the only 
way is to try the next best on your list. Any gour- 
met who happens to stay at the Palace Hotel at 
Montreux will find the restaurant of that hotel a 
place of good though simple cookery, and the Hotel 
Beaurivage at Ouchy, and the Grand Hotel at Territet, 
have good marks against them in my memory for well- 
cooked and well-served dinners. Fresh-water fish, of 
which Bondette is one of the best, fruit, cheese, honey, 
are all excellent by the lake, and the wines of the 
Rhone valley (Crossex-Grillc, Clos du Rocher, Mont 
d'Or, Villeneuve, Lamarque, and others) are some of 
them excellent. At Lauzanne, Vevey, Montreux, 
Territet, the wines of the country are well worth 
tasting, for in the valley above Villeneuve there are 
a dozen vineyards, each producing an excellent wine ; 
and the vines imported from the Rhine valley, from 
the Bordeaux and Buro-undv districts, 2;ive wine which 
is excellent to drink. Deralez and Neuchatel are both 



31 8 'The Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

pleasant wines, and Yvorne is a very strong one. 
Always ask what the local cheese is. There are 
varieties of all kinds, and they aflFord a change from 
the eternal slab of Gruyere. 

St. Moritz 

St. Moritz is becoming a very fashionable winter 

sporting resort, and from the middle of January to 

the commencement of March there are more of the 

young Princes of Europe to be found there than, at 

any other time, in any other village — for it is only 

a village — in Europe. There is a cafe-restaurant just 

above the station, but the restaurants attached to the 

hotels are those at which most of the private dinners 

are given. That of the Savoy Hotel I found quite up 

to date, and some of the royalties who 
The Savoy i t;- i • i • i- i i- 

stay at the Kulm give their little dinner 

parties at the Savoy. As a proof of the comparatively 
poor material to be found in Switzerland, the manag- 
ing director of this hotel told me that when a parti- 
cularly recherche dinner was required he telegraphed 
to Paris for all the food in the raw to be sent to St. 
Moritz. 

The St. Moritz Club, which is practically the 
British Club, has rooms in the Savoy building. Its 
The St. Moritz reading and smoking room, a great 
Club comfortable lounge panelled with dark 

German oak, is one of the pleasantest club rooms 
I know anywhere. 

Davos 

In Elsener's Restaurant Davos has a particularly 

good dining-place. Mons. Elsener was for a time 

caterer to a battalion of the Coldstream 
Elsener s r^ ^ i i i ^ 

(juards, and he also was the manager 

of the restaurant of the Imperial Institute when that 



Switzerland 3 1 9 

building competed with Earl's Court. This is the 
menu of a dinner which I ate at Elsener's one January, 
and for which I had nothing but commendation : — 

Hors d'oeuvre. 

Bortsh clair. 

Fruites en courtbouillon. 

Pommes. Sc. HoU. 

Filets Mignon Rossini. 

Pommes Soufflees. Celeris moelle. 

Cailles roti a I'Anglaise. 

Salade de Saison. 

Angels on Horseback. 

Dessert. 



XII 

AUSTRIA 

Austrian Cookery — Vienna — Salzburg — Baden— Carlsbad-^ 
Marienbad — Other Towns. 

Austrian Cookery 

Of the many good things that might be said con- 
cerning Austrian cookery, the best is, that there is 
no country in the world, not even excepting France, 
where the average of good cookery in inns and hotels 
is so high as in Austria. It is an exception, even in 
the smallest inns, to be served with an ill-cooked meal, 
and the red and white or blue and white tablecloths 
spread on the little tables under the trees in any 
country hotel garden always seem to be clean. One 
characteristic of Austrian cookery, and a very good 
one, is that the cook, in cooking a meal, adds to his 
dishes all the salt and spices that can be required in 
carefully considered quantities. The diner never has 
to half empty a salt-cellar or send a rain of black 
pepper on to his meat. The Wiener Rostbraten^ 
the steak of the capital, the Wiener Schnltxel^ differing 
from that of Hanover and Hamburs; in its garnish of 
anchovies, olives, and hard-boiled eggs, are two of the 
best-known of the Austrian dishes. Others are — Ver- 
micelli with poppy seeds ; Smoked beef, sauerkraut 
and dumplings ; Styrian mutton and herbs ; Ester- 
hazy roast beef and minced vegetables ; Pork chops 

fried in bread crumbs ; Lentil soup with sausages ; 

320 



^Austria 321 

Vienna pancakes ; Smoked pork ribs ; Carp stewed 
with onions and pepper. Some of the Austrian en- 
tremets, simple but deh'cious, should find their way to 
England. The soufflee omelette is beautifully light, 
and the Stephanie omelette, which is a soufflee omelette 
enveloping a spread of greengage jam, is a very favourite 
ending to a repast. Salzburg Knockerl is another 
light dish, and the cakes of sago and other light food 
stuffs, eaten with fruit-juice, are good, plain, sweet- 
tasting food. Apfehtrudl^ an admirable apple turn- 
over, Kaiserschmarren^ which is shreds of pancake and 
raisins, are two other popular Austrian sweet dishes. 
The Austrian bread and Austrian pastry are the best \\\ 
Europe, and the Austrian coffee is just as well made 
as any coffee served in France. An Austrian house- 
wife once explained to me the secret of this. " You 
English," she said, " always talk of your chalky hard 
water, and excuse your poor coffee on that score. In 
Austria every housewife looks carefully at her coffee- 
berr.ies before she roasts them, and also after they 
are roasted, for she knows that a greasy berry or a 
burned one will spoil a whole making of coffee." An 
Austrian housewife will never allow metal to touch 
coffee, but I fancy that this is more a matter of super- 
stition than of practical coffee-making. An Austrian 
housewife does even more wonderful things with a 
goose than a German one does. She cuts up her 
bird, spices its liver in a little casserole, boils its back 
and serves it with rice, spices its breast and bakes 
it, and makes a brown stew of its giblets and feet. 
Each province has a cookery all its own. Bohemia, 
for instance, prides itself on its apple tarts and on its 
muffins stuffed with poppy-seed jam, its dumplings 
of cream cheese, ham, egg, cream, and apricot jam, 
and its wonderful crumpets. 

This, the lunch eaten by King Edward when he 
visited the Austrian Exhibition in London, and 



322 T'he Goiirmef s Guide to Europe 

lunched at the Austrian restaurant, is a very good 
specimen of an Austrian meal : — 

Kalte Vorspeise 

(Hors d'oeuvre). 

Riihreier mit Spargelspitzen 

(Scrambled Eggs, Asparagus Tips). 

Rindfleisch mit Gemiise 
(Boiled Beef and Vegetables). 

Backhiihner, Haiiptel Salot 

(Fried Chicken and Lettuce). 

Prager Schinken 

(Prague Ham). 

Kaisersehmarren 

(a Vienna Delicacy). 

Apfelstrudl 
(Apple Cake). 

The drinkables were : — 

Dreher's Lager Beer. 

Schlumberger's Voslauer Goldeck. 

Mattoni's Giesshiibler. 



Vienna 

The Bristol Hotel at Vienna was the smart dining- 
place when I first made the acquaintance of the 
Bristol, Austrian capital nigh on thirty years 

Kartner Ring ^go. It lost some of its smartness at one 
time, but has now regained it all, and its restaurant, 
redecorated and smartened up in every way, is the 
best of the cosmopolitan restaurants of the Austrian 
capital. The restaurant has a luminous glass roof on 
which flying ladies are outlined, and when I last passed 
through Vienna long rolls of paper were pinned to 
its walls in order that the opinion of habitues might 
be taken as to what its next transformation should be 



(Austria 323 

like. An American bar, just off the dining-room, 
and a cafe, are in great favour with the British and 
Americans who visit the hotel. A table d'hote dinner 
is served from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., but the smart young 
officers who come in to dine and the groups of 
Americans and Britons as a rule order their meals 
a la carte. The a la carte prices are high, but the 
cookery, the service, and the pleasant surroundings 
justify the prices. Some specialties of the house are 
trout taken alive from the aquarium, Huitres Titania, 
Homard Cardinal^ Poularde JVladim'ir^ Souffle King 
Edward VII.^ Oranges a ? Infante. 

Cafes and restaurants cluster round the Opera 
House. In a street of tall houses just behind the 
Opera is Sacher's Hotel and Restaurant, sacher's 
the old-established aristocratic dining- Augustiner- 
place of Vienna. Its name is displayed strasse 
boldly at the corners of the street, so as to guide the 
wanderer to it. There are two dining-rooms in the 
restaurant. The one to the right is the favourite 
one. Its ceiling is of brown wood, and the broad 
frames of its doors and mirrors are also brown. Its 
walls are covered with crushed strawberry paper with 
a deep red pattern. The lamps, half globes of light 
pink, held by cords of light pink with brass adorn- 
ments, are strikingly pretty. There are meals served 
at set prices between 12 noon and 8 p.m. One menu 
is a 6-kroner one, the other a lo-kroner one. Twice, 
however, when I have asked, in defective German, 
for the menus of the table d''hote meals, a waiter, 
knowing me not to be an habitue^ and doubtless 
thinking that he was doing his best for the house, 
has solemnly assured me that only a la carte meals 
are served at Sacher's. There is always one dish 
of the country, frequently an Hungarian one, on 
the bill of fare, and such dishes as fried brains and 
tomato sauce and Risotto^ which are on a menu I 



324 T^he Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

have preserved, show that Sacher's is av^are that Italy 
has an excellent national cuisine. The head w^aiter, 
who speaks a little English, is a very useful man to 
call into council if the table waiter is inclined to be 
too anxious that the diner should be a source of 
profit to the restaurant. The table waiter at Sacher's 
I generally find is not satisfied to take note of the tip 
given to the head waiter who makes out and presents 
the bill. He expects a tip for himself. This to many 
English is their first notification that the indiscrimi- 
nate tipping which is prevalent in Austria extends to 
the restaurants. At the watering-places, Carlsbad, 
Marienbad, and the other Bohemian Baths, there 
are three waiters who expect a tip at mid-day dinner 
and supper — the head waiter, the table waiter, and 
the small boy who brings the wine. An Austrian 
at any except the very smart establishments generally 
gives 3d., 2d., and id. to the three w^aiters according 
to their grade. An Englishman generally gives more. 

Meissl and Schadn's, which presents a very highly- 
decorated exterior to the Karthnerstrasse, and has an 
Meissl and entrance in the market-place behind 

Schadn's, Karth- the house, is the typical Viennese 
nerstrasse restaurant. In the dining-rooms on 

the first floor, officials, officers, and the well-to-do 
citizens eat pickled veal, smoked sucking-pig, stewed 
beef of various kinds, stewed pork, Risi Bisi (rice and 
beans), and other national dishes. In various small 
rooms on the ground floor and in the basement 
varlets of various degrees revel at immensely reduced 
rates. 

Hartmann's, almost opposite to the Bristol, is very 
Franz Hart- popular at the time of the mid-day 

mann's, meal. Its walls are panelled with 

The Ring green silk, and its windows command 

a view of the busy life of the Ring. Its cuisine 
is Austrian, 



Austria 325 

The Stephan Keller (Cafe de I'Europe) in the 
Stephanplatz is a much frequented cafe. It was 
originally an underground resort in the vaults of 
St. Stephan, but it has risen to a higher sphere. 
This house is much used by the colony of artists 
who also are to be found at Hartmann's, Cause's, 
and the Rother Igel. 

The wines of the country of Retz, Mailberg, 
Pfaffstadt, Gumpoldskirchen, Klosterneuberg, Nuss- 
berg, and Voslau should all be tasted, most of them 
being more than drinkable. Beer, however, is the 
real Viennese drink, and the very light liquid, ice 
cold, is a delightful beverage. 

There are wine houses — Esterhazy Keller, for 
instance, where all classes go to drink the Hungarian 
wines from the estates of Prince Esterhazy — without 
number, and many of these have their specialty of 
Itrian or Dalmatian wines. The Rathhaus Keller, a 
great arched series of rooms, has its various wine 
vaults, some patronised by the gentry, some by the 
common people. The summer resorts are mostly for 
the people only ; they are butterfly cafes, opening in 
the summer and closing in the winter, and if their 
clientele deserts them there are only some painted 
boards, tables, and benches to be carted away and a 
hedge to be dug out ; but in the Prater there are 
some more substantial establishments — Sachet's, a 
branch of the town house, and the Rondeau and 
Lusthaus, which are made the turning-points in the 
daily drives of the Viennese. 

Vienna keeps very early hours, most of the cafes 
closing well before midnight, unless they are kept 
open for some special fete. 

In the environs of Vienna there are pleasant restau- 
rants on the Kalenberg, up which a little railway 
runs, and at Klosterneuberg, where one can drink the 
excellent wine of the place at the Stiftskeller before 



326 The Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

one admires the view from the terrace, or looks at the 
treasures of the abbey. 

Of the clubs of Vienna the Jockey Club is socially 
the most important. Then comes the Wiener Club. 
Third on the list is the Commercial Club. 



AFTER DINNER 

Ronacher's is a huge music-hall and supping place 
where one can eat one's evening meal and see at the 
same time a fine variety performance on the stage. 
For many years it was the finest variety theatre in 
Europe. It is well worth a visit even from those 
people who do not habitually go to music-halls. The 
Apollo is another music-hall where the great stars of 
the variety firmament often appear. So much has 
been written lately of the ballet at the Imperial 
Theatres of Russia, that it might be believed that no 
good dancing was to be seen outside St. Petersburg 
and Moscow. The corps de ballet of the Viennese 
opera dances admirably, they are all girls picked for 
their looks, the premieres danseuses are great artists, 
and the ballets are mounted as splendidly as in any 
other theatre in the world. I have seen " Excelsior " 
danced in most of the capitals of Europe, but nowhere 
so well or with such fine mounting as in Vienna. 
Of the theatres for light opera it is difficult to give 
any indications, for the right theatre to go to is the 
theatre at which the current success of Oscar Strauss 
or Leo Fall happens to be running. Though Vienna 
is an early closing town on the whole, the revellers 
stay late at ^' Max and Moritz," " Susses Madel," 
** Dummer Kerl," and at such establishments as the 
Tabarin, Maxim's, and the Chaperon Rouge, whose 
names are an indication of their character. 



Austria 327 



Salzburg 

The town of Salzburg, a delightful town, has 
half-a-dozen restaurants which give good, plain, well- 
cooked food. The buffet at the railway station 
is much above the average of such restaurants. At 
the Kurhaus Restaurant you may listen to a military 
band while you eat a mid-day table d'hote meal, 
which costs you about half-a-crown. Mirabell in 
the Marktplatz has a garden where the tables are 
set in hot weather. There are many restaurants on 
the surroundins: hills, on the Monchsber? and the 
Gaisberg. The cafe-restaurant on the plateau of the 
Monchsberg is a pleasant place to sit and listen to the 
band ; and the St. Hubertus is another pretty restau- 
rant on the long forest-clad line of hill. To see the 
good people.of Salzburg enjoying themselves at their 
ease one should go to the St. Peter's stiftskeller 
Stiftskeller. It is a vaulted arcade 
built against the side of the rock. The light wines 
of the country, red and white, obtainable here, are 
noticeably good. Supper is served at oak tables with- 
out any tablecloths, and a paper napkin is wrapped 
round the knife, spoon, and fork. The dishes of 
the day are the simple but not always easily diges- 
tible plats of Austria, Husaren-hrateyi^ Jungfern-hraten^ 
Kamrfleisch^ and the rest. The white Konventwein 
is a quite harmless beverage. 

Baden 

Baden is a little watering-place sixteen miles from 
the capital, to which the Viennese go for a " cure," 
and to which the Carlsbad and Marienbad doctors 
sometimes send their patients to begin an after cure. 
It is a pretty little place with shady parks and an 



328 ^he Gour?net's Guide to Europe 

unpretentious restaurant at the Kurhaus and another 
in the Weilburggasse, and the walk up the valley of 
the Schwechat has cafe-restaurants at several of the 
points of interest. 

Carlsbad 

Probably twenty Englishmen go to Carlsbad for 
their liver's sake for every ten who go to Vienna to 
be amused, and the s;reat Bohemian town in the 
valley where the hot spring gushes up is one of the 
resorts to which gourmets, who have eaten not wisely 
but too well, are most frequently sent. It is a town 
of good but very simple fare, for the doctors rule it 
absolutely, and nothing which can hurt a patient's 
digestion is allowed to appear on the bill of fare of 
any of the restaurants or hotels. 

The Hfe of the place, which chiefly is bound up in 
the consideration of where to eat the three simple 
meals allowed, is curious. In the morning, after the 
disagreeable necessity of drinking three or more glass- 
fuls of the hot water, every man and every lady spends 
a half hour deciding where to breakfast, and what 
kind of roll and what kind of ham they shall eat. 
The bakers' shops are crowded by people picking out 
the special rusk or special roll they prefer, and these 
are carried ofF in little pink bags. Two slices of ham 
are next bought from one of the shops where men in 
white clothes slice all day long at the lean Prague 
ham or the fatter Westphalian. No man is really a 
judge of ham until he has argued for a quarter of an 
hour every morning outside the shop in the Carlsbad 
High Street, as to what breed of pig gives the most 
appetising slice. Bag in hand, ham in pocket, the 
man undergoing a cure walks to the Elephant in the 
Alte Wiese, or to one of the little restaurants which 
stud the valley and the hillsides, delightful little 



(tAu stria 329 

buildings with great glass shelters for rainy days, 
and lawns and flower beds and creepers, where neat 
waitresses in black, with their Christian names in 
white metal worn as a brooch, or great numbers 
pinned to their shoulders, receive you with laughing 
welcome, set a red-clothed table for you, and bring 
you the tea or hot milk and boiled eggs which com- 
plete your repast. Be careful of which waitress you 
smile at on your first day, for she claims you as her 
especial property for the rest of your stay, and to ask 
another waitress to bring your eggs would be the 
deepest treason. Many of the proprietors of the little 
restaurants have now set their faces a2;ainst rolls and 
ham being brought into their gardens from outside, 
saying that they provide the best of rolls and the best 
of pig's flesh. It requires a day or two in Carlsbad to 
discover which the restaurants are which resent the 
importation of food by guests. 

Dinner is a mid-day meal at Carlsbad, and as you 
are not tied down to any particular hotel for your 
meals because you happen to be staying there, and 
as half the world lives in lodging-houses, the custom 
is to dine wherever your fancy pleases you. There 
is some little difference in the prices between the 
first-class restaurants and those not quite so high up 
in the scale, and there is a difference in the quality 
of some of the dishes. When the doctor has put one 
on very short commons, and half a chicken and a 
kompott form one's mid-day meal, it makes a great 
difference whether the chicken is a majestic pullet 
from Styria, a bird which need not be ashamed to 
compete with Surrey or Houdan champions, or a 
chicken of the local breed, which to a hungry man 
seems no biggtr than a pigeon, and which costs about 
half as much as the bigger bird. The best restaurants 
also get the pick of the partridges and the trout. 
The man or lady who has been dieted by a Carlsbad 



330 'T'he Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

doctor is never allowed to run a finger at will down 
a Speisen-Karte. Eggs, lean ham, quite plain fish, 
boiled beef, roast venison or veal or mutton, partridge, 
chicken, kompotts and vegetables comprise the entire 
choice. Luckily most of these things are excellent 
at Carlsbad. Of the fowls I have already spoken. 
The Tepl, the brown stream which ripples down 
through many miles of pine-clad hills to fall into the 
Eger below Carlsbad, is full of excellent trout, and so 
are many of the other streams in Bohemia. These 
trout are generally cooked au bleu. Zander, the pike- 
perch, is always to be obtained ; and Fogash, a 
Lake Balaton fish with hrm white flesh, is served 
grilled and is excellent. The partridges shot on 
the highlands about the Abbey of Tepl are fine 
plump birds, and partridge shooting in Austria com- 
mences a month earlier than it does in England. 
About 4 crowns is the price of a partridge at any 
of the best restaurants, and a medium-sized trout costs 
about 3 crowns. 

At all the restaurants a table cChote dinner is to be 
found which is suitable for people who are not going 
through a cure. The price of this dinner varies from 
5 crowns at the best restaurants to 3 crowns 50 heller 
at the more moderate ones. I take at random one 
of Weishaupt's 5-crown dinners, and find that it con- 
sists of Creme de Riz, Sandre sauce Hollandaise^ Saute 
de Veau Printaniere^ Rost-beef roti (sic), Pouding aux 
fruit — all dishes banned to those on " cure " diet. 
Most of the little restaurants on the river and the 
hills have some specialty, generally of tarts or some 
other entremet. At Hans Heiling the Kaiser schmarren 
is a specialty, while at the- Hunting Lodge the 
Apfelstrildl is especially delicious. 

Herr Pupp owns a very considerable portion of 
Carlsbad. His great hotel and restaurant and cafe 
and garden at the end of the Alte Wiese cover 



^47.1 stria 331 

a very large amount of ground, and he has as well 
many houses which are dependances of the hotel. 
The cafe and restaurant accommodate pupps, 
many hundreds of people. There is -^l*® Wiese 
a grove of little horse chestnut trees where red-clothed 
tables are set, and where simple food and tea and 
coffee and beer and ices are served by little waitresses 
in black. A glass shelter borders one side of this 
grove, and there is a large bandstand where one of 
the many bands there are in Carlsbad plays in the 
afternoon and evening. A narrow road divides the 
grove from another space, a three-cornered one in 
the open air, where the tables are whit^-clothed and 
where the waitresses and waiters divide the duties. 
On one side of this space is a vast hall used as a 
cafe and concert-room when the weather is cold 
and wet, and on the other is the restaurant. The 
restaurant is built in three steps. First on the ground 
level are tables sheltered by big white sunshades 
decorated with a pattern of chestnut bloom and leaves, 
then comes a terrace sheltered by a canopy upheld 
by big spears, and then inside the building are two 
rooms, the further one at a higher level than the near 
one. The windows are taken out in hot weather and 
leave frames of crimson and gold, the decorations are 
gorgeous, and there is an abundance of gas and electric 
lights. Pupp's on a warm summer's night at supper- 
time, when the Cur-kapelle finds the music, is a 
very fine sight. The food is invariably good and 
well-cooked at Pupp's, but the waiters on crowded 
nights seem to have more clients on their hands than 
they can attend to satisfactorily. 

My pet restaurant at Carlsbad is Weishaupt's in 
the Alte Wiese. I have watched its rise to fame. 
The first time that I went to Carlsbad weishaupt's, 
Herr Weishaupt had a shop where ham ^^^ Wiese 
and other delicatessen were sold, and on the other side 



332 T'he Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

of the entrance passage was a little dining-room, 
was told that whatever was of the best in the market 
of a morning was secured by Weishaupt for his 
clients, and I found that no plumper partridges, no 
fresher trout, were to be found anywhere. Now 
Herr Weishaupt has three rooms, all decorated in 
excellent taste, in his restaurant, and its front is of 
brown marble. He himself is " hoflieferant," and 
wears the best-fitting frock-coat in Carlsbad, and all 
vestiges of the ham shop have vanished. The restau- 
rant is of a manageable size, the head waiters do not 
rush about, the waiting is done without noise, and 
there is no overcrowding of tables. The partridges 
are as plump and the trout are as fresh as of yore, and 
the cook of the establishment is an artist. Weishaupt's 
now has its Specialttes de la Maison^ of some of which 
I partake on the day before I begin a " cure " and 
on the day I finish one before I go to the station. 
They are Madr'iUne en Tasse, CEufs Gourmand^ Filets 
de soles Camhon^ Poulet saute Catalane^ Souffle Mocca. 
On warm days Weishaupt's puts tables under the 
trees on the other side of the Alte Wiese, and 
sitting of an evening at one of these tables, one sees 
all the world of Carlsbad taking its after-supper walk 
come past. 

At the Savoy, which stands high up in that part of 
Carlsbad which is named the West End, the great 
The Savoy, lights of Anglo-Saxon society generally 

West End take their meals. The Americans have 

the hotel in great favour, and the very pleasant 
cosmopolitan society which is to be found where 
the well-known Americans go clusters in its res- 
taurant. There is a Spanish corner where half 
the dukes of Spain are generally to be found, and 
many of the Russian nobility are habitues of the 
restaurant. The Savoy has its own band. Nunco- 
vitch, of Egyptian fame, is one of the proprietors of 



(*Au stria 333 

the Savoy, and a decorative Nubian in a long blue 
garment always stands at the front door. 

Just as aristocratic as the Savoy, or even more so, 
and certainly more peaceful, is the Bristol, which has 
a little hill of its own in the West End. The Bristol, 
The brother and sister of the Czar West End 
generally stay there for an autumn " cure," and on 
those occasions there are always one or two quiet 
men in the garden taking an interest in the scenery. 
The cooking at the Bristol is noticeably good, and 
the fact that the proprietor of this hotel married a 
daughter of the great house of Pupp may have some- 
thing to say to this pleasant state of things. 

A rival to the Bristol and Savoy is Lord Westbury's 
great hotel now rising on the Helenenhof, an hotel 
which is to be opened in 191 2. A model of this new 
great house of fashion stood all last year in the upper 
station of the funicular railway, and the building, 
when completed, will be an ornament to Carlsbad. 
It will have command of magnificent views both up 
and down the valley. 

In previous editions of this book I have had a good 
word to say concerning the Goldener Schild, but that 
sound, old-fashioned hostelry is now being pulled 
down, and on its site is to rise the new Kursaal. 

Since Herr Weishaupt rose to eminence every 
proprietor of a provision shop has established a restau- 
rant. One of the most popular of these potzl's, 
is behind Potzl's shop in the Market Marketplace 
Place. I have no doubt as to the excellence of the 
food provided there, but on a summer night the restau- 
rant has always looked to me to be a very warm place. 
I have, however, eaten, and eaten very well, in the new 
and more airy room which Herr Potzl has opened on 
the first floor, and which looks down on to the market- 
place. The best butter, and the best ham, and the 
best honey in Carlsbad are to be found at Potzl's. 



334 



T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe ^^ 



Whenever an Englishman has a craving to break 
his " cure " and to eat such of the food of the country 
Loito's, as his doctor has forbidden him, I find 

Theatergasse that he generally goes to Loib's, a 
hotel and restaurant w^hich is in the Theater2;asse 
almost behind the theatre. This restaurant is in 
high favour vi^ith the citizens of Carlsbad who are 
under no diet restrictions. 

In the environs of Carlsbad are many pleasant little 
restaurants where fresh-caught trout and the simple 
meats allowed by the doctors at the mid-day meal are 
to be found. At Abero-, where a watch- 
tower stands on the highest point of 
the hills, there is a terrace whence a beautiful view 
of the Eger valley is obtainable, and it is quite a 
pleasant spot for any one walking on the forest paths 
to call a halt for lunch. 

St. Leonhardt's, deeper in the forest, is another very 

„ , , , , pleasant little restaurant. The wood 
St. Leonhardts f n • i r • i • • i ti 

IS on all sides or it, and it is much like 

a little country inn with a few glass shelters near it 
as a refuge on rainy days. 

One of the walks alongside the Eger takes one 
down-stream to the small village of Dallwitz, and 
there in a little park of a chateau is to be found a 
majestic oak, one of those made famous by the poet 
Drei Eichen, Korner. Also in the park is the Restau- 

Dallwitz rant Drei Eichen, where there is quite 

a large dining-room and the usual little tables outside 
under the trees. Do not be led by Baedeker's 
account of a charming little lake to go in search of 
it. Two ponds just outside the restaurant gates are 
the only sheets of water you will find. 

The pleasantest, perhaps, of all the sylvan restau- 
rants within walkino; distance of 
HansHeilmg n \ u a ■ ^u u u r 

Carlsbad is the Hans Jtieiling one 

where the Eger runs through a rocky gorge. The 



Austria ' '^'^^t^ 

restaurant with its terrace and many tables looks 
quite picturesque and in keeping with its surround- 
ings, and one lunches within a biscuit-throw of the 
river, and with the sound of the rapids as an accom- 
paniment. 

The village and mineral water establishment at 
Giesshubel in the valley of the Eger is almost beyond 
walking distance, thou2;h it is quite a «. , , , 
pleasant day's outing to go there by 
public coach in the morning and to walk back in 
the cool of the afternoon. The establishment has a 
restaurant where very much the same food as is to be 
found in the Carlsbad restaurants is ready for visitors 
at remarkably cheap rates. A most benevolent old 
manager is in charge of this part of the establishment. 
There is a pretty little park in which to stroll after 
lunch, and on the hillside is the spring which supplies 
the well-known table water. You mav see it bubble 
up in a basin of marble covered by a curve of crystal. 

A pleasant drive's distance from Carlsbad is Elbogen, 
a mediaeval town and castle high on a rocky knoll looped 

by the river. At the hotel in the market- 

/ , . , . . Elbogen 

place there is a charmmg terrace, parti- 
ally roofed over, from which there is a fine view of the 
gorge of the river where it makes one of its hairpin 
turns. The food is simple and the service elementary, 
but the situation and surroundings make the terrace 
of the Elbogen inn a notable lunching place. 

At Eger, which forms a point for a train excursion 
from Carlsbad, the restaurant at the station is the 

best feedins; place of the town. A 

. . Effer 

portion of the platform is railed off 

before the restaurant, and in this enclosure one can 

sit and lunch or dine and watch all the bustle and the 

coming and going of the trains. 



33^ T^lie Gourmefs Guide to Europe 



The Carlsbad Clubs 



I 



If there is any social club in Carlsbad I never 
heard of it, and I am sure the doctors would order 
their patients not to belong to it, as club life would 
keep them out of the open air. The nearest approach 
to such a club that I know of is the reading-room of 
the Kurhaus, where for a daily or weekly or monthly 
subscription you can look at the papers of all the 
civilised countries. 

There is a sports association with sub-divisions 
into golfing and lawn-tennis and shooting and winter 
sports clubs. The golf links and their pavilion lie 
up the valley just beyond the Kaiser Park Cafe. 
There are tennis-courts in several parts of Carlsbad. 
The courts which are between the Freundschaf Saal 
and the Kaiser Park are those on which the tourna- 
ments are played. The new Kurhaus, however, now 
being built, may have its club surprises for the visitors. 

AFTER DINNER 

The Carlsbad theatre, a handsome building in the 
Alte Wiese, gives during the Carlsbad season all the 
operettas which are in favour in Vienna. The best 
artists of the operetta stage often come to Carlsbad on 
a tour and sing their favourite roles for a few per- 
formances. Farces are also sometimes played. The 
performances generally commence at 6.30 and con- 
clude at nine or shortly afterwards. There are two 
variety theatres in the lower town, at both of which 
the great stars of the music-hall world often appear. 

Marienbad 

Of Marienbad I can only speak as having gone 
there once or twice in a season whenever I have 



(^Austria 337 

suffered " a cure " at Carlsbad. The life the 
"cure guests" lead is very similar at both places. I 

have found the great Hass shelter of „, ^ 
, T 1 J ] • 1 The Imperial 

the Imperial crowded with representa- 
tives of the innermost circle of London society eating 
lean ham and kompotts, and I have lunched at the 

Stern where the company was equally 

I 11 1 T< 1 11 Txie stern 

select and where the rogash and the 

chicken were excellently cooked. The late King 

Edward generally gave his dinner on the birthday of 

the Emperor of Austria at the Kurhaus, 

, ^ . c n 1 <^/^T-i The Kurhaus 

where a suite or rooms are called " i he 

King's Rooms " ; and when Lady Goschen gave a 

lunch at which King Edward was the principal guest, 

the Riibezahl, a great cafe and restau- The Riibezahl 

rant and hotel, which has red roofs, ^^^^ 

looks like an old chateau, and stands on a height near 

the town, was the restaurant selected. The Nettuno 

in the town is spoken of with enthusiasm by its habitues. 

The Riibezahl is a very favourite cafe at afternoon 

tea-time, and the Cafe E2;erlander is 

,, • I 1 r • o-i Cafe Egerlander 

equally in vogue at breakrast-time. 1 he 

latter stands high, and from its terrace, where is the 
usual little grove of trees, there is a fine view of the 
valley and the plain. The rooms are replicas of par- 
lours and kitchens and bedrooms in the houses of the 
picturesque district of Egerland, and the waitresses 
are all in the handsome dress of the Egerland peasants. 
The proprietor of the Egerland Cafe, Herr Ott (a 
gentle, pleasant, elderly man with a beard, who is 
generally to be found in his cafe at any hour of the 
day), began life in a turner's shop. Now he not 
only owns the Egerland Cafe, but Ott's Hotel and 
a cafe in the town as well. His wife may always 
be seen at tea-time in the spotlessly clean kitchen 
of the Egerland Cafe in command of a legion of 
waitresses. 



338 l^he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 



Clubs 



\ 



The Marienbad Golf Club owns links on the sreat 



to' 



table-land beyond the Riibezahl. When I saw it 

„, ^ ,^ «, , last the club-house was extraordinarily 
The Golf Club ,, j 1 n n • 1 r • 

small, and the nags Hying berore it 

were extraordinarily large. King Edward had taken 

the little pavilion into favour as a place to go to at 

afternoon tea-time, and had expressed a hope that it 

would be enlarged, which hope was duly carried out. 

AFTER DINNER 

The late King Edward was a staunch patron of 
the little theatre at Marienbad, and it became the 
fashion for all the great people taking their " cure " to 
be seen in the boxes when operetta was being played. 
The performances are run on much the same lines as 
the Carlsbad ones. There is, I believe, a variety hall 
at Marienbad, but I have never been to look at it and 
its performances. 

Other Towns 

I have not been in Innsbruck recently enough to 
write with any confidence of the qualities of the 
restaurants there, but I noted when I was there last 
that Kraft's in Museumstrasse and Grabhofer's in 
Erlenstrasse were cafe-restaurants worth notice. To 
Meran I have never been, but I am told that it 
resembles the other watering-places in that the best 
material and best service is found in the restaurants 
of the best hotels. At Bad Gastein I have lunched 
with content at the old-fashioned Badeschloss, and 
have dined well at the newer Kaiserhof. At Prague 
my experience has been that the restaurants of the 



Austria 339 

two rival hotels, the Saxe and the Blue Star, are 
the two best to dine at, but my gastronomic experi- 
ences in three days at Prague were not encouraging. 
At Riva on the Lago di Garda there are two big 
hotels, the cookery at either of which being clean 
and Austrian comes as a change after the richness 
of the Italian school. Abazzia, the Nice of the 
Austrian Riviera, has not yet achieved the full cele- 
brity which is sure to come to it. The restaurant 
of the Stephanie has an excellent cook, but is by no 
means cheap. 



XIII 

HUNGARY 



The Cookery of the Country — Buda-Pesth — Bnda-Pesth CUibs- 
Other Towns. 



The Cookery of the Country 

Paprika is the new element which comes into play in 
most Hungarian dishes. Perhaps the best known of all 
the dishes of Hungary is the Gulyas^ or as the French 
call it, the Goulache^ which is a comparatively dry 
dish of beef, dusted with paprika^ as one eats it in Buda- 
Pesth and which as one travels westward becomes 
more and more like a ragout seasoned with the Hun- 
garian pepper. Paprikahuhn is a fowl dusted with the 
pepper and baked or stewed. Paprika Carp is excellent. 
Ungarisches Rebhulin is a form of pickled veal. Hun- 
garian wines are well known in England and America 
— Erlauer, Ofner, Carlowitz, Goldeck, Riesling, 
Leanka, Ruster, Schomlayer, Szegszarder, being often 
imported. Kristaly and Isle de Ste. Marguerite are 
Hungarian mineral drinking waters. Biere de Ko- 
banya is one of the many light beers of the country. 



Buda-Pesth 

One of the customs of Buda-Pesth is that the two 

great clubs of the city — the National Casino, which is 

340 



Hungary 341 

the Club of the Nobles, and the Club of the Gentry — 
allow their cooks, who are always Frenchmen, or at 
least professors of the Cuisine Fran^aise^ to own and 
manage restaurants on the ground floor of the club 
buildings. 

The National Casino Restaurant I found a quiet, 
high, white room, not overcrowded with tables. The 
maitre crhotel talks excellent French, National Casino, 
the dishes on the carte dc jour are all Kossutligasse 
French, the people dining were mostly celebrities. 
On one occasion the Hungarian Minister of War, his 
wife and aide-de-camp, were supping at one table, 
while at another was the Minister of Education enter- 
taining some friends. It has all the appearance and 
the tone of a good Parisian restaurant. 

The Restaurant Miiller is the dependance of the 
Club of the Gentry. I never mastered the name ot 
the street in which it is situated. Its Restaurant 
rooms high and white, lighted by hang- Miiller 
ing lamps, have, in crimson curtains and other details, 
somethins; of the Hungarian national character. A 
very fine gipsy band, said to be the best band of its 
kind in Buda-Pesth, plays in this restaurant, and it is 
a revelation to hear how the Czardas sound when 
played by such musicians. The cookery is French. 
This was the dinner given me at the restaurant by an 
Englishman who knows his Buda-Pesth well ; but 
the Sangleron was the. only dish out of the beaten 
track. It was, however, an excellently cooked 
dinner. 

Creme Parmentier. 

Rouget Grille, Vin Rouge. 

Boeuf Garni. 

Sangleron Raifort. 

Poulet Roti. Salade 

Entremets. 

Dessert. 



342 T'he Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

A correspondent from Hungary tells me that th 

restaurant must have changed its name, for he was 

unable to find it. 

The great white restaurant opposite the Opera 

House, Drechsler's, is an excellent house at which to 

Drechsler's, essay Hungarian dishes, and I ate there 

Andrassystrasse a very well cooked Paprika huhn. It is 

as well, however, to have a companion who speaks 

Hungarian if one dines away from the hotels or the 

two club restaurants. The Gambrinus 
Gambrinus -n^ ^-^ur^^D- 

Restaurant m the Uuter Kmg, a great 

room with white and gold columns, was another 

restaurant at which I essayed the national dishes with 

successful results. A military band played, the room 

was crowded, and beer seemed the beverage of the 

house. 

On the menu of the restaurant of the Hotel 
Hungaria, a restaurant much patronised by the Hun- 
garians, one of the dishes is always Gulyas. At the 
restaurant of the Bristol there is generally a choice of 
Hungarian dishes. 

Theatres begin early at Buda-Pesth, and therefore 
afternoon tea becomes an important meal, and theatre- 
goers generally sup after the play is over. There is a 
cafe at the corner of every street, all always full in the 
Kugler's, l^te afternoon; but Kugler's, the fashion- 

Giselaplatz able pastry cook, is the smart tea-drinking 

establishment. In the big room is a long counter 
with on it many different kinds of sandwiches, sweets, 
cakes, and a dozen different kinds of wine. In this 
room and in the smaller one little tables are set very 
close together, and at them sit beautiful ladies and 
generals in full uniform and all the gilded youth of 
Buda-Pesth. Little waitresses scurry about with ices, 
and cups and glasses and plates of cake. 

The theatres themselves do a considerable catering 
business, for in the foyer there is always a buffet where 



Hungary 34 j 

all kinds of eatables and drinkables are dispensed durino- 
the entr'actes. Even in the great red and yellow 
marble Opera House a long table occupies the centre 
of the foyer, and the audience falls to very heartily at 
sandw^iches, and sardines, caviare, sw^eets, lemonade 
and beer between the acts. 

On the Island of St. Margaret there are several 
popular restaurants and brasseries. 

The Clubs of Buda-Pesth 

The most gorgeous, most tasteful, most beautiful 
club I know is the Park Club in the Park of Buda- 
Pesth. It is a "cock and hen club," and the ladies 
go there in the summer every afternoon and sit on the 
terrace, and on race days watch the 
people returning from the races. On ^^ ^^^ 
the ground floor is a beautiful oval hall, with fine 
furniture and a wealth of flowers. To one side runs 
a series of rooms where every indoor game may be 
found, and to the other side is a long vista of dining- 
rooms. Upstairs is a splendid ballroom, and when 
on a ball night the Czardas are danced by everybody 
after supper, the scene is a stimulating one. On hot 
evenings the tables are moved from the dining-rooms 
out to the terrace. There are lawn-tennis courts 
behind the house and a narrow garden with fountains 
in front of it. 

The National Casino 'u\ the city is a stately club. 
The porters wear the old scarlet Hussar uniform. 
On the first floor is a long green corridor National 
where are hung the heads of deer shot Casino 
by members. A suite of rooms runs the lensjth of 
the buildings, one of the rooms being stocked with 
a fine selection of the newspapers of all nations. The 
dinners given in the big dining-room generally have 



344 ^^'^^^ Gourmets Guide to Europe 

a touch of national cookery. This is one which 
breaks away from the usual French lines : — 

Somtoi. Gulzas Clair. 

Eteville 1868. Fogas de Balaton a la Jean Bart. 

Chateau Margaux Cuissot de Pore frais. 

1875. 

Choucroute farcie. 
Moet 1884. Cailles roties sur Canape 

Salade. 
Tokay 1S46. Artichauts frais. Sauce 

Bordelaise. 
S'll'vorium 1796. Turos Lepeny. 

BaracrhpTinka i860. 

The Club of the Gentry and the Union Club are 
other clubs of the city. All are hospitable to the 
stranger introduced by a member. The Polo Club 
is in the centre of the race-course. The Tennis Club 
is on the Margaret Island. 



AFTER DINNER 

The great opera house is well worth a visit, though 
its performances do not rank with those of the operas 
of the great European capitals. It is quite a con- 
siderable time since I was in Buda-Pesth, but I found 
then that the most applauded number in all the Hun- 
garian operettas was a cake-walk, and that at all the 
comedy theatres translations of French or English 
plays were on the boards. 



Other Towns 

Of Tatra Fured and Tatra Lomnicz I know no- 
thing by personal experience ; but Hungarians tell 
me that at the Grand Hotel at the one and at 



Hungary 345 

the Palace at the other any luxury which can be 
found at any mountain resort is obtainable, and 
that the life both in summer and winter is very 
amusing, which I can quite believe, for no nation 
in the world has such high spirits as the Hungarians. 
Herculesfiirdo, the " cure " place of Hungary, lying 
deep in the gorge of the Cserna, is just as well 
found in simple food as are the " cure " places of 
Austria. 



XIV 
ROUMANIA . 

The Dishes of the Country — The Restaurants of Bucarest — Bucarest 

Clubs— Sinaia. 

■ The Dishes of the Country 

In Roumania you must never be astonished at the 
items set down in the bill of fare ; and if " bear " 
happens to be one, try it, for bruin does not make at 
all bad eating. The list of game is generally surpris- 
ingly large, and one learns m Roumania the difference 
there is in the venison v^^hich comes from the different 
breeds of deer. Caviare, being the produce of the 
country, is a splendid dish, and you are generally asked 
which of the three varieties, easily distinguishable 
by their variety of colour, you will take. The Rou- 
manian caviare is smaller than the Volga caviare. A 
caviare salade is a dish very frequently served. The 
following are some of the dishes of the country : 
Ciulama^ chicken with a sauce in which flour and 
butter are used ; Scordolea^ in which crawfish, garlic, 
minced nuts, and oil all play a part ; Baclava^ a cake 
of almonds served with sirop of roses. These three 
dishes, though now Roumanian, were originally in- 
troduced from Turkey. Ariel U?igclute is a dish of 
green pepper, meat, and rice ; Sar?nalute are vine 
leaves, or leaves of the white cabbage, filled with 
meat and served with a thick preparation of milk ; 
Militei is minced beef fried on a grill in the shape 

346 



Roumania 347 

of a sausage. Cheslas and Manwliguz'za^ the food of 
the peasant, much resemble the Itah'an Polenta^ and 
are eaten with cold milk. Ghiveciy a ragout with 
all kinds of vegetables mixed in it, is a favourite 
dish of the country. 

The Restaurants of Bucarest 

Capsa's Restaurant takes a high place amongst the 
good restaurants of the world. Capsa is a Frenchman 
who has learned his duties as cook and capsa's, Galea 
confectioner in some of the best houses Victoriei 
of Paris, and coming to Bucarest, he has brought 
French taste to bear upon the cookery of the country, 
and at his restaurant there is always a choice of dishes 
of Bulgaria, and of French plats. Capsa's establish- 
ment on the main street is a confectioner's shop which 
is used as a cafe, for one of the pleasant customs of 
this very Parisian town of the East is for people to 
sit at midnight outside the confectioners' shops eating 
ices or drinking long cold beverages through straws. 
The door of the restaurant is a ^&w yards down the 
by-street. The door is changed for jalousies in hot 
weather. The walls of this restaurant are painted 
to resemble green and yellow marble, and the pillars 
which support the roof are green with gilded capitals. 
A great white stove is the only un-Parisian object in 
the restaurant. There is a show-table on which cold 
delicacies and fruit are placed. The clientele of Capsa's 
reminded me of those of the Anglais and the Ermi- 
tage in Paris. Many of them are elderly, all are 
smart, and on race-meeting days the talk is of horses, 
for these well-groomed gentlemen are mostly owners 
of race-horses and members of the Jockey Club. 
Capsa, sharp-featured, wearing a little moustache 
and frock-coated, goes from table to table taking 
with him a dish of some cold delightftd meats or a 



34 8 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

plate of exceptionally fine fruit to show to his 
favourite customers. The prices at Capsa's are the 
prices of a good Parisian restaurant. One lunch at 
the restaurant, the bill for which was the equivalent 
for 17 francs 50 centimes, consisted of hors (Toeuvre^ 
a grilled sterlet, Sar?nale^ Cepes Proven^ales^ cheese, a 
half-bottle of Dragasami (which wine has the flavour 
of muscatel grapes), a half-bottle of Mattoni water, 
coffee, and a liqueur glass of fine-champagne, which 
last, at 3 francs, was the most expensive item in 
the bill. 

This is a typical dinner which I ate at Capsa's : — 

Caviar. 

Ciorba de Poulet. 

Turbot a la Grec. 

Mousaka aux Courges. 

Gateaux. 

And this a breakfast : — 

Glachi de Carpe (froid). 
. (Eufs Polenta. 
Pilau. 
Aubergines aux Tomates. 

The Roumanian dishes which are specialties at 
Capsa's are these : — Soups — Ciorba de Pui ; Ciorba 
de Galusti ; Ciorba de Burta. Fish — Sterlet a la 
Dobroutscha. Other Dishes — Dovlecei umpluti cu 
smantana ; Perisoare cu aurd ; Sarmale de Var%a ; 
Chiveciu National ; Rata cu castraveti acri ; Curcan 
pe Varza ; Tocana de Muschiu cu mamaliguta. 

Capsa's list of the Roumanian wines may safely 
be taken as a guide to what is best of the country 
vintages. Dragasani, Odobesti, Cotnar, Tamaiosa are 
the white wines, some of which are of vintages as 
distant in date as 1879 ; and the red wines are 
Nicoresti, Odobesti, and Dealu mare. A bottle of 



Roumania 349 

champagne of G. H. Mumm's "Cordon Rouge" of 
no guaranteed year costs 22 francs, and a bottle of 
Allsopp's Pale Ale costs 5 francs 50 centimes. At 
Capsa's all the waiters have a knowledge of French, 
and that language is generally talked by the habitues 
of the restaurant, for a Roumanian of the upper 
classes is always proud of speaking French with 
' Parisian fluency and accent. 

There are many purely Roumanian restaurants in 
Bucarest. The only one as to which I have personal 
experience is that of Dimitrescu at the Dimitrescu 
end of the Strada Acadamiei, opposite Strada 
the side face of the Hotel Continental. -Acadamiei 
Some of the waiters at this restaurant have a smat- 
tering of German as well as their own language. 
The restaurant has green walls, and attached to it is a 
garden where, under a large canvas awning, the tables 
are set on hot nights. I found the menu a puzzle, 
for not only is it written in Roumanian, but hot 
entrees, fish, and gros pikes are all in the same column. 
I ordered Shinbere, Teya Risol, and appealed to the 
head waiter to order for me, as my third dish, some 
typical Roumanian p/at. What my dinner proved 
to be was a good thick tripe soup, cold fish with a 
mayonnaise sauce, and roast chicken cut up and served 
on a pile of white pickled cabbage. 

Across the little garden behind the Hotel Con- 
tinental is the restaurant ot the hotel, a rather 
solemn but comfortable place wherein jjotel Con- 
to dine, A table (Phote dinner is served, tinental, 
the dishes all being of the French Theatre Square 
cuisine, though cold sterlet, little Roumanian sausages, 
and other dishes of the country are on the table for 
cold meats. The restaurant of the Hotel Boulevard, 
the most modern hotel of the town, is also a dining- 
place at which a dinner above the average of the Near 
East in the matter of cookery is to be obtained. 



350 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe ^H 

Of cafes and pastry-cooks and cafe-chantants there 
Jonescu, are a great number in the town and 

Strada Covesci the parks and the suburbs. Jonescu 
in the Strada Covesci is one of the cafetiers whose 
shop is very popular in the afternoon. 



BucAREST Clubs 

The Jockey Club is the most important of the 
clubs of Bucarest, which are all after the French 
model. The Jockey Club has a dining-room of the 
British type. The Military Club, the Tineriniea 
(the Youth), the Royal, and the Agricol are the 
other clubs. The last three are hospitably inclined 
towards travelling Britons who are suitably intro* 
duced. Play runs high at the Bucarest clubs. 



AFTER DINNER 

The odds are strongly in favour of a visitor finding 
on the boards of the big theatre some patriotic national 
opera or play of many acts, and with scores of charac- 
ters in it. A little company of French players from 
the Capu^ine was at one of the operetta theatres when 
I made acquaintance with Bucarest, and Viennese 
operettas were being played at a second. In the hot 
season the Moulin Rouge and two or three open-air 
cafe-chantants are amusing places at which to spend 
an hour. 

SiNAIA 

Sinaia is the hill station in the Carpathians where 
the King and Queen of Roumania have built their 
summer palace. The village is intentionally kept 
small, and there are only three hotels. Two good 
express trains run both ways during the day, and the 



Roumania 351 

journey from Bucarest is not a long one, and is in- 
teresting. At Ploesci, a junction on the line where 
all trains stop, there is a refreshment room where a 
cheap and plentiful table dliote meal is served. Sinaia 
is very fashionable in the summer, for most of the 
ministers and many of the foreign diplomatists follow 
the King and Queen up to the picturesque village 
in the woods below the great grey Restaurant 
crags. Capsa has a gay little restaurant Capsa, Boule- 
on the Boulevard Chica, a little pavilion ^^^^ ^^^^^ 
of iron and glass, painted and gilt, which is open dur- 
ing the summer months ; and George Riegier's, 
Riegler has a dainty little coffee-house The Park 
and terrace and a tiny garden where a cascade falls 
over miniature boulders next door to one of the 
bandstands. 

The Hotel Caraiman, on a hill just above the 
station, is open summer and winter. In summer it 

is crowded to its holdino; capacity. In „ , , « 

^ 1 11- Hotel Caraiman 

winter a score or guests have the big 

hotel to themselves. I can answer for the meals at 

the hotel being simple and well cooked, and a stranger 

arriving during the " offseason " is flattered with much 

attention. 



XV 
SERVIA 

The Food of the Country — Belgrade — Kijievo. 

A WALK through the market of Belgrade in the 
autumn shows at once what there is good to eat in 
Servia. There is no market in all the south of Europe 
which can show such colour or such a wonderful 
choice of fruit. Beans of all kinds and all colours 
from bright yellow to deep green, crimson tomatoes, 
peppers orange and green and red, deep scarlet radishes, 
purple egg-plants, cabbages, lettuces, and onions are 
cheek by jowl with tubs of honey, piles of cheeses, 
and great trays of plums and grapes, peaches, apples, 
and pears. Wholesale buyers come from all over 
Europe to the Belgrade market to buy fruit, and as 
the peasants are all in their national costumes, the 
market place with its rows of acacia and chestnut 
trees giving shelter to the stalls is a very picturesque 
sight. 

Belgrade 

The cookery of Belgrade is the cookery of Vienna, 
or rather a rough imitation of it. The power of 
France in the kitchen ceases directly the Balkans 
The Grand come into sight. At the Grand Hotel 

Restaurant, there is a restaurant which is the best 

Michael street j^^ Servia. Brown velvet couches and 
zinc palms convey an idea of luxury, and the cookery 



Servia 3^3 

is that of provincial Austria, the veal cutlets being a per- 
fectly safe dish to ask for. I tried the Servian whines, 
the Jupsko and Negotine, and found that they had a 
twang v^hich was not altogether agreeable. During 
the time I spent in Servia I drank the Hungarian 
wines which are to be obtained at all the hotels. 
The Servian beer and the Servian cheese are both 
excellent. A correspondent mentions the Hotel 
Moskau as having the restaurant next in merit to 
that of the Grand. 

I was anxious to sample some real Servian dishes, 
but the smell of garlic which came from the open 
doors of the one-storied, brown-roofed eating-houses 
of the people told me that the national stew would be 
too highly scented for my palate. I went to the 
Servian Crown, the restaurant which is .pj^^ Servian 
supposed to be next in merit to the Crown, Kali- 
Grand, and found it a not very cleanly- megdanGardens 
looking cafe with an inner room partitioned off by 
painted-glass doors. The food when it came was 
the usual fried veal. 

In the Topchilder Park, which is the Hyde Park 
and Richmond and Kew of Belgrade all rolled into 
one, there is an open-air brasserie, where Restaurant 
I can answer for the native beer being Topchilder 
refreshing and icy cold, and where the manager told 
me that he could give me a beautiful lunch ; and just 
outside the park and across the railway there is on the 
side of a hill another of these beer-house cafes with 
comfortable cane chairs in which to sit and look at 
the view. 

KlJIEVO 

The only place outside Belgrade where the cookery 
is not positively atrocious is Kijievo, a little summer 
resort which is within driving; distance of the capital, 

* ^ z 



354 'T'he Gourmets Guide to Europe 

but to which the Servians generally go by rail. 
There is a little hotel there which has a glassed-in 
verandah, and some villas which are taken by the 
month by the merchants of Belgrade, and tree-clad 
hills with paths made on them, and a little lake with 
a punt on it, a fountain and a rose-garden. The 
host of the hotel, bidden to do his best, gave the 
little party of picnickers, of whom I was one, some 
vegetable soup, veal cutlets, rice and potatoes, and 
pancakes and blackberries. 

Servia is not a country in which a gourmet should 
call a halt to enjoy good things to eat and good things 
to drink. 

AFTER DINNER 

At Belgrade I found at the theatre the usual 
patriotic drama, in which the Servians are the victors 
over the Turks, and after seeing one act shirked the 
rest. There was no alternative amusement, and even 
the hall-porter at the Grand could suggest nothing 
except an evening in a cafe where a band played. 



XVI 

BULGARIA 



The Food of the Country — Restaurants of Sofia — The 
Union Club. 



The Food of the Country 

All the fish of the Danube are to be bought in the 
strange semi-Oriental street of the provision mer- 
chants at Sofia, where weird, uncouth joints of meat 
are surrounded by piles of country sandals and squares 
of embroidery and wooden water-bottles. Men carry 
bunches of live fowls tied to the end of yokes up 
and down this street, and boys sell sheep's trotters 
arranged like a fringe on a stick. In the vegetable 
shops are masses of peppers, and a stew highly seasoned 
with paprika is the meat-dish of the people. The 
cheese Sadowa, or Sadova, is good, and so is a cream- 
cheese. Turkish and Austrian cookery meet and 
fraternise in the kitchens of Sofia. 



The Sofia Restaurants 

The restaurant of the Hotel de Bulgarie has white 
blinds and little tables with white linen tablecloths, 
and is quite smart and clean. The Hotel de 
cook must be an Austrian, or must Bulg-arie 
have learned his trade in an Austrian kitchen, for 

355 



35^ T'he Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

the food is exactly that which one would expect to 
be offered in a small provincial Austrian town. 

There is a Greek restaurant in Sofia, the exterior 
of which did not look sufficiently inviting to tempt 
an inspection of the interior, and there is a Mace- 
donian cafe where some of the ardent Bulgarian 
politicians dine. These and a beer-house, "The 
Red Crab," where a band plays ; two cafe concerts, 
which keep open till all hours of the night, and in 
which fire-water is served under many different 
names ; and a dozen or two ordinary cafes, are the 
houses of refreshment in Sofia. 



The Sofia Clubs 

The military officers have a large club, on the 
model of the Austrian officers' casinos, and the 
foreign colonies in Sofia have a particularly pleasant 
little club in the Union. Two-thirds of the mem- 

THe Union Club ^^^'^ °^ ^^'^ ^^^^ ^'^ English; but 
some of the customs of continental 
clubs, such as the introduction of new members to all 
the other members, are adhered to. The diplomatists 
of the various Agencies — for Bulgaria being nominally 
vassal to Turkey, the Legations are called Agencies — 
all belong to the Union. The club extends honorary 
membership to visitors, and to be accorded this 
privilege adds immensely to the pleasure of a stay 
in the Bulgarian capital. There is a reading-room 
in the club, where the papers of all nations are 
to be found. The chef is an artist. He adapts his 
menus to the tastes of his masters of all nationalities, 
and a mousaka^ a risotto^ and a saddle of Welsh mutton 
may sometimes be found on the same bill of fare. 
Some of the statesmen and generals of Bulgaria are 
members of this club, and when a man of very great 



T^ulgaria 357 

importance wishes to give a dinner which shall make 
history he is sometimes allowed to borrow the club 
cook. Bridge is played at the Union, and I believe 
that in the small hours a round of poker is not 
unknown, and that the Bulgarian generals play a 
very sporting game. 



AFTER DINNER 

The new opera house of Sofia is that capital's latest 
proof of complete civilisation, but even Sofia cannot 
get rid of the Balkan vainglorious habit of producing 
interminable patriotic, poetic dramas. These are 
sandwiched with German opera. Little travelling 
operetta companies play in a barn on the road to the 
station, and the cafe-chantants are places of small 
rooms, much smoke, vile liquors, and indifferent 
performances. 



XVII 

TURKEY 

Turkish Cookery — Constantinople Restaurants — Therapia — 
Constantinople Clubs. 

The Turkish cookery is by no means to be despised. 
The Turk has been driven bag and baggage out of 
many European countries, but he has always left his 
cooking-pots behind him. In Greece and in the 
Balkan States the best dishes of the country are really 
Turkish ones. The Turks, like all Mohammedans, 
are great eaters of vegetables, and beans, small cucum- 
bers, rice, and whatever fruits are in season form the 
principal food of all classes. The Turk is extremely 
particular concerning the water he drinks ; on the bills 
of fare of the restaurants the various drinking waters 
find a place, and a charge is made for them. The 
many-coloured sherbets which make the windows of 
the cafes in the poor portions of the towns look like 
those of chemists are as much a subject of taste to 
be discussed as wines are with us. 

The Turkish kabobs and the pilafs of chicken are 
good, but their appearance is not appetising and they are 
too satisfying. A little rice and beef, rather aromatic 
in taste, is wrapped round with a thin vine leaf, in 
balls the size of a walnut, and eaten either hot or 
cold. This is called Talandjl Dolmas. Yaourt or 
Lait Ca'ille is a milk curd, rather like what is called 
Dicke Milche in Germany. Aubergines are eaten in 

358 



Turkey 359 

every form ; one method of cooking them, and that 
one not easily forgotten, is to smother a cold aubergine in 
onion, garlic, salt, and oil ; this is named Tmam Bayldi. 
Keinfte are small meat-balls tasting strongly of onions. 
Loufer fish, fried or grilled ; Plaki fish, eaten cold ; 
Picti fish in aspic ; small octopi stewed in oil ; 
the Espadon^ or sword-fish, grilled ; Mousaka^ vege- 
table marrows sliced, with chopped meat between the 
slices and baked ; Tachn'i^ meat stewed with celery 
and other vegetables ; Kehap^ *^ kabobs " with a bay- 
leaf between each little bit of meat ; Kastanato^ roasted 
chestnuts stewed in honey, and quinces treated in the 
same manner ; vermicelli stewed in honey ; and pre- 
serves of rose leaves, orange flowers, and jessamine — 
all are to be found in the Turkish cuisine. The 
Turk is the best sweetmeat maker in Europe, and 
a tin of rose-leaf jam, or a wooden box of Rabat 
Lakoum, freshly made, is always an acceptable gift 
to take home to England to any household. The 
Roti Kouzoum is lamb impaled whole on a spit like a 
sucking-pig, which it rather resembles in size, being 
very small. It is well over-roasted and sent up whole. 
I am informed on the best authority that when a host 
wishes to do you honour he tears pieces off it with 
his fingers and places them before you, and you have 
to devour them in the same manner. 

I herewith give a typical Turkish dinner : — 

Duzico. 

Hors d'oeuvre. 

Yalandji Dolmas. 

PoTAGE. 

Creme d'Orge. 

PoissoN. 
Espadon. See. Anchois. 



360 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

Entr]^e. 

Boughou Kebabs. 

Carni Yanik. 

Ron. 
Kouzoum. 

Legumes. 

Bahmieh a I'Orientale. 

Ymam Bayldi. 

Entremets. 

Yaourt et Fruits. 

The wines of Turkey are mostly of a Sauterne 
character. Balkan is a strong rough wine. Douzico 
is a liqueur which somewhat resembles Kiimmel. It 
comes from Tchesme, and Omourdja, and Broussa, 
and the Greeks and Levantines, who are its principal 
consumers, are very particular as to the brand. 
Mastik, from Chio, is another liqueur largely con- 
sumed by the Christians in Turkey. 

Of course every hotel in Pera has its restaurant. 

That of the Pera Palace is the one which the travelling 

Englishman gravitates to naturally, and 

it is the best of its kind. I do not 

think it would be considered first-rate in any capital 

except that of Turkey. 

Of the restaurants of Pera, apart from the hotels, 
Tokatlian's is the best. This big restaurant is built 
Tokatlian's, in the shape of a cross, and glass screens 

Grande Rue keep the draughts of air away from the 

customers. The prevailing colour of pillars and walls 
is cream colour. The rooms are lofty, and a flight 
of stairs leads to a suite of rooms on the first floor. 
The part of the restaurant nearest the entrance serves 
as a cafe. Tokatlian's at first sight reminded me 
somewhat of our London Gatti's. In the evening 
Tokatlian's is crowded, and quite a number of the 



Turkey 361 



men wear fezzcs. This does not necessarily mean 
that they are Turks, for many Greeks and other 
Christians whose business takes them amongst the 
Turks wear the fez as attracting less attention in 
Stamboul than a " pot hat " does. The managers of 
the restaurants wear the frock-coat of ordinary civih'- 
sation ; the waiters wear aprons. There are always 
some Eastern as well as French dishes on the bill of 
fare, and a pilcif and a mousaka at Tokatlian's give a 
very fair idea of what a well-to-do Turk eats. My 
neighbours on the last occasion I dined at Tokatlian's 
were two Greek ladies at a table on one side and a 
German merchant and three young men in fezzes on 
the other. Grilled trout, roast partridges, and great 
slices of water melon formed the dinner of the men's 
party ; the ladies ate cakes and sweets. Little chunks 
of a big Espadon fish, rather oily and fried in a cover- 
ing of bay leaves, were the Eastern delicacies of my 
repast, which otherwise, except for the Cafe Turc, 
was a French dinner. Most of the diners at 
Tokatlian's drink the beer of the country, which is 
very light, and is brought to table cellar-cold. 

Janni's, also in the Grande Rue, but at the opposite 
end to Tokatlian's, is a very cosmopolitan restau- 
rant, and its cartes de jour are made janni's, 
out in Turkish, Greek, Armenian, and Grande Rue 
French. It consists of several rooms screened off by 
coloured glass divisions. Pilafs and other Turkish 
dishes are to be found on the bill of fare, and an 
attempt is made to cater for the tastes of all the 
nations. Janni's keeps open at night so long as any 
customers remain there. 

Toughourt^ curdled milk, is a favourite dish with 
the Turks, and Europeans take very Laiterie de Pera 
kindly to it. It can be got at the Grande Rue 
Laiterie de Pera, in the Grande Rue, and can be 
eaten in the shop. 



362 'The Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

Unless any man is an enthusiast, it is as well to test 
Turkish cookery at Tokatlian's or Janni's, and not to 
venture into any of the Turkish restaurants in Stam- 
boul. Not that the cookery is not excellent, for it is ; 
but a Turk does not seem to mind how garish, or 
sordid, or dirty the surroundings are, so long as his 
food is well cooked. If you wish to try the novelty 
of eating a Turkish dinner in a Turkish restaurant, do 
not forget that a Turk takes his one substantial meal 
of the day about noon. The best place at which to 
experiment on Turkish cookery is an out-of-doors 
eating-place in what is by courtesy called a garden 
near Sta. Sophia. There is an enclosure and a grove 
of dusty little trees. A kitchen and a wooden shed in 
which the " hubble-bubble " pipes are ranged on 
shelves are in the centre of the enclosure, and there 
are many plain wooden chairs and tables occupied by 
officials of all grades, military officers, and the Turkish 
mercantile community. 

Another dining-place is close to the railway station, 
and in the Grande Rue de Sirkedji near the Galata 
Bridge there is quite a choice of restaurants. At the 
Restaurant Osmanlie in this street I have eaten red 
mullet stewed in oil with pickled cabbage, peppers 
and olives as a garnish, a capital Mousaka of Aubergines 
— for there are several vegetable foundations for Mou- 
sakas — a Pilaff Kabobs roasted over a charcoal fire, and 
Baclava^ as a "sweet." The dinner was well cooked, 
the oil surprising me by being excellent ; but the dirty 
room, the cheap coloured prints, the great bunches of 
foliage put in vases to attract the flies away from the 
guests, the mirrors in soiled gilt frames, the strange 
conglomeration of food shown in the windows to at- 
tract customers, were not appetising. And the guests, 
all of whom seemed to have been a week without a 
shave, and such of them as showed any linen having 
evidently quarrelled with their laundresses, were quite 



Turkey 



Z^Z 



in keeping with the dirty blue paint on the walls 
and the stains on the marble-topped tables. 

Therapia 

Constantinople, with its mangy dogs, and its streets 
all in holes, always seems to me an unclean and 
abominable city, and I take steamer as soon as 
possible to Therapia, which is a civilised village. 
Here, as in Pera, the choice of dining-places lies 
between one of the Palace Hotels, the Therapia 
Palace, and Tokatlian's. Both are clean and airy, 
and the sea breeze blowing down from the Black 
Sea fills all the rooms with healthy salt-purified air. 
I do not think that there is anything to choose 
between the two hotels in the matter of cookery, 
which is fair at each. 

Constantinople Clubs 

There are two clubs in Pera — the Little Club, the 
title of which is I believe the Cercle de Constanti- 
nople, and the Cercle de I'Orient in the Grande Rue. 
The Cercle de I'Orient is the club of cercle 
the Ambassadors and the Great Ones of d® rorient 
the Land. It is hospitable to properly introduced 
strangers ; its chef is a most accomplished artist ; and 
it has all the dignity of an old-established cosmopolitan 
club. It is closed during the hot months when all its 
members are either on leave or at Therapia. The 
Little Club keeps open all the year round. In the 
hot weather it rolls up its carpets and takes the doors 
off their hinges; in winter it becomes The Little 
snug and comfortable. The officials of ^^^^ 
all the consulates, and the diplomatists and the 
merchants, are members of the club, and at lunch- 






364 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

time there is a British table, and a French, and 
German, round which cluster the various nationalities. 
It is a very comfortable and merry and hospitable 
club, and as it is almost next door to the big hotel 
of the city, its hospitality is much appreciated by the 
clubbable men of all lands. 



AFTER DINNER 

There is generally a French company playing in 
the theatre of the big pavilion which stands back some 
way from the Grande Rue, just above the Pera Palace 
Hotel. Such native entertainments as there are it is 
wise not to visit without a guide in attendance, who 
will explain the nature of the performances, and very 
probably save the inquiring stranger from many dull 
half-hours spent in very hot and crowded little rooms. 



XVIII 
GREECE 

Grecian Dishes — Athenian Restaurants. 

No one lives better than a well-to-do Greek outside 
his own country, and when he is in Greece his cook 
manages to do a great deal with comparatively slight 
material. A Greek cook can make a skewered pigeon 
quite palatable, and the number of ways he has of 
cooking quails, from the simple method of roasting 
them cased in bay leaves to all kinds of mysterious 
bakings after they have been soused in oil, are in- 
numerable. There are pillaus or pilafis without 
number in the Greek cuisine, chiefly of lamb, and 
it is safe to take for granted that anything a la 
Grec is likely to be something savoury, with a good 
deal of oil, a suspicion of onion, a flavour of parsley, 
and a good deal of rice with it. These, however, 
are some of the most distinctive dishes : — Coucouretxi^ 
the entrails and liver of Iamb, roasted on a spit ; 
Dolmades^ meat balls wrapped in vine or white 
cabbage leaves, and served with a cream sauce and 
a squeeze of lemon juice ; Tomates Termistes^ which 
are tomatoes stuffed with forcemeat ; Touvarlakia^ 
balls of rice and chopped meat covered with tomato 
sauce ; and Bligouri^ wheat coarsely ground, cooked in 
broth, and eaten with grated cheese. Argokalamara^ 
a paste of flourj and yolk of egg fried in butter with 
honey poured over it, and Chalva and Loukoumia^ 



■ 

an a| 



^66 The Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

are some of the sweets of the cuisine. All Grecian 
cookery is done over a charcoal fire. A too great use 
of oil is the besetting sin of the indifferent Greek 
cook. The egg-plant is the great " stand-by " of 
the Grecian kitchen ; it is stuffed in a dozen different 
ways. 

The food of the peasant is grain, ricCj goat-flesh 
when he can get it, a skinny fowl on the great 
festivals, milk, and strong-tasting cheese. A bunch 
of grapes and a hunch of sour bread is his usual 
hot weather meal. 

The Grecian wines, though some of them taste 
shockingly of resin, are not unpalatable. Solon, 
Soutzos, Kephista, Kephallenia, are all quite drink- 
able ; and the better-class wines of Kephallenia, and 
those of Patras, made by a German firm, are enjoy- 
able. Much of the Greek wine goes to Vienna 
and other centres of the wine trade, and reappears 
with labels on the bottles havins; no connection 
with Greece. 

Athenian Restaurants 

The restaurants of Athens are not happy hunting- 
grounds for the Anglo-Saxon gourmet. The Restau- 
rant Splendid, in the Hotel des Etrangers, Place de la 
Constitucion, the Minerva, and the D'Athenes, both 
in the Rue de Stade, are the pick of a not too 
promising bunch ; and Murray recommends one in 
Amalias Street, near the Palace, which I do not 
remember to have seen. 

A most grave litterateur to whom, as he had been 
lately travelling in Greece, I applied for supplemen- 
tary information, applied the adjective " beastly " to 
all Greek restaurants, and added that the one great 
crying need of Greece and Athens is an American 
bar for the sale of cooling drinks in the Parthenon. 



XIX 

DENMARK 

The Hours of Meals — Copenhagen Restaurants — The Badehotels 
on the Sound. 

Of the food of the country there is little to say. The 
restaurants of the hotels aspire to French cookery ; the 
simpler eating-places where the Danes enjoy them- 
selves have the plainer cookery of Scandinavia — scraps 
of beef in the form of TournedoSy cutlets, baked fowl, 
and the smorgasbord — the hors d'ceuvre of the north, 
which, however, are to be found in greater variety 
in Sweden. The hours of the meals throughout 
Scandinavia should be noted by the Englishman, 
who because he likes to lunch at 1.30 and dine at 
8.15 thinks that the whole world must do likewise. 
The Dane or Swede or Norwegian rises very early, 
has his coffee and roll, and then works till 11, when 
he leaves his office or his place of employment and 
eats his breakfast. At noon he goes back to work 
and at 4 p.m. he eats his dinner. He generally sups 
lightly before he goes to bed. The Briton who goes 
into a restaurant at what he considers the sane hours 
at which to feed and finds no table d'hote meal ready 
and the cook out for his daily walk, learns that every 
country does not of necessity follow the British time- 
table, 

367 



368 T^he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 



Copenhagen 

At the Hotel d'Angleterre, opposite the Royal 

Opera House, I found the cooking quite good, 

Hotel d" Angle- both in the restaurant and grill-room, 

t6i"^e though not in any way distinctively 

Danish ; and the same can be said for the cooking of 

the Hotel Bristol, a red-brick building with a high 

Hotel Bristol, tower up which people who wish to 

Raadhusplad gge the view are conveyed in a lift. 

Men who know their Copenhagen have told me that 

a p-ood dinner is to be found at the Phcenix. I had been 

told that I should find the national cookery in the Danish 

restaurant of the Tivoli Gardens, and 

Tivoli Gardens , , . ^ . 1 .. t 

that the price or it was 3 kroner. 1 

hunted all the Tivoli through for this particular 
restaurant and did not find it. The Tivoli is a 
parallel to our Earl's Court Exhibition, and it is in 
the very centre of the city. If all the buildings 
between Leicester Square and St. James Square were 
pulled down and a garden made with a great free 
concert hall and a great free theatre and a smaller 
theatre for pantomime with a tremendous peacock's 
tail as a curtain and another stage for acrobats, and if 
side-shows galore and a score of cafes and restaurants 
were scattered about and a lake made and a pagoda built, 
then London would have something resembling the 
Copenhagen Tivoli. I tried at least ten of the cafe- 
restaurants in the Gardens, asking in my best Danish 
if they had national cookery. All blazed with light, 
in each I was bowed to a little table, and as I stood 
and parleyed a menu in which most dishes were a 
la was put into my hand. At last in despair I sat 
down at a table in one of the big dining-rooms which 
are on either side of the concert hall, a hall which is 



T)enmark 369 

in close imitation of the Taj at Agra. A well-fried 
flounder and some mutton and mushrooms which were 
dignified with the title of a la Marengo were quite 
good eating, but did not add to my knowledge of the 
national cookery. 

The National, almost opposite the Casino, a big 
brown building in which a great gramophone supplies 
music, and where cold poached eggs in cafe National, 
aspic are a favourite dish, is a favourite ^^^^ Industrie 
supping-place, and is crowded about i a.m., and the 
Industrie is another cafe where the supperers sit late. 



On the Sound 

If beautiful scenery and plain food can make a 
man contented, as they certainly should, Denmark in 
summer should be a paradise of content, for no sea- 
scapes could be more beautiful than those that are to 
be looked at from the restaurants of the hotels at half- 
a-dozen little bathing-places within easy reach of 
Stockholm. The coast of Sweden lies on the other 
side of the silver strait, little yachts with white sails 
lie and rock by the side of the piers, and the big 
ships pass continually up and down the channel. 
Skodsborg is one of these delightful settlements on 
the sea. Behind the Badehotel are Badehotel, 
beautiful beech woods, and many Skodsborg 
creepers and pollarded trees, and a terraced garden 
give the plain simple hotel charming surroundings. 

Klampenborg, on the edge of the deer-forest about 
seven miles from Copenhagen, is another of these 
delightful bathing- places. The beech Badehotel. 
woods are a preserve for the royal deer, Klampenborg 
and at the Badehotel, with its many wooden balconies, 
I found everything very clean, the food simple, and 
the bill a verv small one. 

J 

2 A 



370 T^he Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

At Marienlyst, which is near Elsinore, there is an 
hotel semi-oriental in appearance with arched veran- 
The Casino, dahs and a wealth of creepers. A casino, 

Marienlyst ^ restaurant, and two score of cottages 

form part of the bathing establishment. What I have 
written concerning the food and the views at Skods- 
borg and Klampenborg holds good for Marienlyst. 
In the casino grounds is Hamlet's grave, which is a 
very good reproduction of the last resting-place of a 
Viking. A neighbouring pleasure-garden, jealous of 
this happy idea of Marienlyst, has made in its grounds 
the identical pool in which Ophelia drowned herself. 



AFTER DINNER 

I have described above the Tivoli Gardens, in 
which all Copenhagen amuses itself in the summer. 
My knowledge of the winter amusements after dinner 
is but scanty, but I am told that the performances at 
the Opera are well worth seeing, and any one who is 
an amateur of dancing should see the performances of 
the Opera Corps de Ballet, from whence have come 
to us such artists as Miles. Genee and Britta. 



XX 

SWEDEN 

The Food of the Country — Stockholm Restaurants — Saltsjobaden 
— Storvik— Gothenburg. 

Most of the dishes of the countries of the north are 
very simple ones. The materials which a Swedish 
cook has at command are limited, and the dinners 
of the country, though good, plain, and plenteous, 
cannot be said to come under the heading of the 
Haute Cuisine. Some of the dishes of the country 
are Kaldahnar^ chopped meat rolled in a cabbage leaf 
and fried ; Svensk Beffy beef beaten thin and cooked 
with salt and a thick layer of pepper and onions ; 
Graflaxy raw salmon eaten with oil, vinegar, pepper, 
and a sauce of sweet herbs ; Pytt a Joanna^ fried dry 
hash, exactly like the American dish on which all the 
proprietors of boarding-houses in the States are sup- 
posed to feed their lodgers ; Stairgkarf] which is the 
sausage of the country fried ; Filbunke^ sour milk 
rather like our junket, eaten with ginger, sugar, and 
scraped brown bread ; Bracht Sa?-t Bringa, baked 
corned beef ; Tournedos a la Nobis^ small steaks in little 
china pans, with asparagus points and a mayonnaise 
sauce ; Biff Apres^ beef-steak and pork chopped fine, 
with potato round the dish. Stecht Strammirg is a 
fish much like a plaice. Smorgasbord^ which is liter- 
ally " bread and butter," is very much the same as 
the Russian Zakouska. The smorgasbord table and its 

371 



372 T'he Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

accompanying stand of liqueurs is often in an ante- 
room to the dining-room. It was explained to me 
that the distances in the country being very great, 
some guests would arrive early, some late, and the 
smorgashord table bridged over the many bad quarters 
of an hour which would otherwise have to be endured. 



Stockholm 

The Opera Kallaren, which forms part of the 

buildings of the Opera House, is, I should fancy, 

the most typical of all the Stockholm 
Opera Kallaren ^ -i ^ ,^ l • j- • 

restaurants. i he big dmmg-room is 

panelled with wood the colour of dark cedar, and 

above this is some heavy gold ornamentation and 

some well-painted pictures of semi-nude nymphs 

and shepherds. The ceiling is of wood. I was one 

of a party of six who asked the proprietor to provide 

for us a lunch of Swedish dishes. This was the 

menu : — 

Smorgasbord. 

Filbunka. 

Graflax. 

Kraftstufning. 

Tjadar m lingon. 

Plattar m Sylt. 

Taking the dishes in order. First came the hors 
(Tceuvre^ followed by the junket. The raw salmon 
was succeeded by young capercailzie and cranberries. 
To my surprise the birds were very tender, and their 
flesh had no resinous twang ; but for the dark colour 
of the meat I should have taken them to be pheasants. 
Pancakes and cloudberries were the final item. We 
drank with the smorgasbord either Schnapps or a yellow 
fiery native liqueur ; we relapsed to French and German 
wine at dinner, and then tasted some Swedish punch, 



Swede?} 373 

which the Swedes drink very fearlessly, but which is 
said to give any one who imbibes it too freely a terrible 
"head" next morning. The table cPhote lunch at this 
restaurant costs i kr. 50 ore, and consists of a dish of 
eggs, which are admirably cooked, meat, cheese, and 
a "sweet" which is generally cake and cream. The 
table d'hote dinners are excellent, one being at 3 kr. 
50 ore and the other at 2 kr. 50 (ire ; the first con- 
sisting of soup (thick soups being a specialty of the 
place), fish, entree, meat, and releve (generally hjarpe)^ 
with a compote of Swedish cranberries and a sweet or 
ice. Here, as in most Swedish eating-places, objec- 
tion is taken to coffee being served in the restaurant, 
guests being requested to take it in the cafe, which 
is generally the next room. Supper is served at the 
Operakallaren, and the restaurant is crowded for this 
meal. It costs 2 kr., and consists of a smorgasbord^ an 
entree, and meat. 

The Grand Hotel, a big house of many gables 
which stands on the quay, has a dining-room panelled 
with red wood, with a frieze and The Grand 
ceiling of cream stucco. The decora- Hotel 
tion of the dining-room is the great attraction of 
this hotel. The lunch costs 2 kr. 50 ore, the dinner 
3 kr. 50 ore. 

The Hotel Rydberg, in the square opposite the 

Palace, is most popular, and the food is good. A 

great feature is made here of the „ ^ , „ ,, 
° , , , , I'll Hotel Rydberg 

smorgasbord table, which has a room 

to itself, and on which are a great variety of dishes, 

there being some wonderful combinations of smoked 

eels, and other fish, and eggs amongst them. There 

are from twenty to thirty of these dishes, all delicate 

and appetising. The guests eat them standing. In 

the same room is a huge plated spirit-stand, containing 

a number of different spirits, white brandy called 

" Branvin," and other drinks very much resembling 



374 ^/^t' Gourmefs Guide to Europe 

vodka. The crayfish, krdftor^ a little larger than the 
French ones, excellent in flavour, and served in a terrine ; 
the Bisque soup ; caviare served, as of course it should be, 
on a bed of ice, are good at the Rydberg, and the cook 
manages to make even a ptarmigan toothsome. It is 
a favourite place for people to sup at after the theatre. 
The table cChbte dinner costs 3 kr. 50 ore and the 
lunch 2 kr. 50 ore. Caloric punch is a favourite 
driftk here, and two men think nothing of drinking 
a bottle between them after dinner or supper. 

One of the best restaurants is the Continental, in 
The Conti- ^he big white hotel of that name oppo- 

nental gj^e the railway station ; Tournedos 

and Ndsselkahoppa^ a soup made from tender young 
nettles, being specialties of the house. 

The Cafe du Nord, in the great square, is very 

clean, very crowded, and very popular, although more 

n f ^ -KT ^ bourgeois than the others. The food 
Cafe du Nord . & . i 1 • 

is good, meals bemg served mostly 

a la carte. A good filet de hoeuf costs about 90 ore. 

The business men who mostly patronise this cafe 

dine from 3 to 4 p.m. Many people sup there in 

the evening. There are some excellently painted 

pictures in black and gold, rather daring and French 

in subject, on the walls. 

The Berns Salonger, a great three-storied red, 

white, and gold cafe, with a small space crowded 

^ „ , with chairs before it, and a covered 

Berns Salonger , , , i , , i • 

bandstand very close to the balconies 

of the cafe, is a place where sandwiches, coffee, punch, 

and liqueurs are always to be obtained at all hours 

strompar- and all seasons. The Stromparterren, a 

terrer pretty garden on the harbour, and the 

Blanch Cafe, which has very green shelters, are open 

from the ist May to the 30th September. 

A military band, nne fellows in cocked 
hats and silver epaulettes, or a naval band in the 



Sweden ^1 S 

uniform of petty officers, are to be found playing 
in the afternoon at these restaurants. 

The Hasselbacken, on an island in the fjord, is the 
most interesting of the Stockholm restaurants. On 
the island is a park, and a little town Hasselbacken, 
of theatres and circuses. The park Skansen 
is known as the Skansen. It is a botanical garden 
and a zoological garden in one, with some of the 
features of a museum added to them. Part of the 
seven thousand acres are left as virgin forest. The 
animals are housed as nearly in their natural state 
as possible ; the bears have their caves, the birds have 
aviaries so high that pines grow inside, the reindeer 
are in an enclosure of forest. Outside this park is the 
Hasselbacken, a broad-roofed building with a wide 
verandah on the first floor, whence one looks over 
the garden with its hundreds of little tables to the 
harbour and its islets and the town. The season 
during which the Hasselbacken is opened is from 
May to the end of September. During the early 
part of the season Tziganes play in one of the rooms. 
In summer a somewhat noisy orchestra plays in the 
garden. The price of dinner, a pr'ix fixe^ is 3 kr. 
50 ore ; this includes soup, fish, meat, releve (gener- 
ally the Swedish guinea-fowl called hjlirpe) and ice. 
Wine and coffee are of course extra. 

The Hasselbacken is often used for the giving of 
banquets of ceremony, but the dinner at 3 kr. 50 ore 
is more likely to interest the stranger within the gates 
than the more extensive feasts, so I give a typical 
menu of this very reasonably priced repast : — 

Puree a la Reine. 

Saumon fume aux Epinards. 

Selle de Mouton aux Legumes. 

Gelinottes roties. Salade. 

Soufflee au Citron. 



376 T'lie Gourmet^ s Guide to Europe 



AFTER DINNER 

My stay in Stockholm was made during summer 
when the weather was hot, and I found that the 
Hasselbacken and the street of amusement outside 
gave me all the amusement I wanted, without stewing 
in an opera-house or one of the theatres of the town. 
I fancy, however, that the opera-house was closed for 
the summer months, but of this I have not any clear 
recollection. 

Saltsjobaden 

At the Swedish Brighton, a very simple and very 

pretty village amiclst the pines on a fjord where small 

yachts lie at anchor on the placid water, and a score 

of little islands have tea-houses amidst the trees, and 

little piers jut out into the wavelets, and bathing 

sheds are on the brink of the water, there are 

a half-dozen of hotels and restaurants at all of 

which the prices are surprisingly cheap. At the 

,,,.., Grand Hotel I was ^w^n a copious 

Grand Hotel 7 7 r • 1 r i i r • 

smorgasbord^ tried nsn, stewed rruit, 

unlimited bread, butter, and cheese ; a pint of 

Swedish beer or any other simple beverage was at 

my service, and the charge was i kr. 50 ore, or 
about IS. 8d. 

Storvik 

At Storvik, a station on the Storlieu line, there 
is a restaurant which is celebrated throughout 
Railway Sweden. You are charged 2 kr.. 

Restaurant, which is the price of a meal at all 

Storvik railway refreshment rooms, and help 

yourself at a big central table, crayfish soup, fish, 
meat, poultry, game, and sweets all being included 
in the meal, and a glass of light beer. 



Sweden 377 

Gothenburg 

The restaurant of the Haglund is a good one, 
and I give one of the menus of its The Haglund 
dinner at 3 kr. :— 

SoPPA. 

Potage a la Parmentier. 

FiSK. 

Saumon grillee a la maitre d'hotel. 

KOTTRATT. 

Langue de Boeuf Garni. Sauce aux Olives, 
ou Fricandeau de veau aux pois. 

Stek. 

Poulet a la Printanier. 
Compotes. 

Efterratt. 
Bavaroise hollandaise ou Framboises. 



XXI 

NORWAY 

The Christiana Restaurants — Throndhjem. 

Norway is not a happy hunting-ground for the 
gourmet. At the best of the dining-places the food 
is plain food well cooked ; at the other dining-places 
it is plain food indifferently cooked. Salmon, halibut, 
and ptarmigan are the variations from beef, bread, 
milk, and vegetables, and salmon and ptarmigan after 
a time pall on the palate. 

Christiana 

The restaurant at the Victoria Hotel at Christiana 
was the ground of most of my experiments in the 
. cookery of Norway, and I felt grate- 

ful to the cook for making a young 
ptarmigan quite an eatable bird. The Hotel Scan- 
dinavie, one of the other three hotels of the city, adver- 
tises that its cookery is both French and Norwegian. 
I ate an evening meal at the brown-walled restaurant 
attached to the Tivoli Gardens, where there is a theatre 

„. ,. of varieties, and found the Tournedos 

Tivoli . 

and the halibut there very much the 

same as they are anywhere else in the north. 

Holmenkollen, looo feet up the mountain behind 

, ,, Christiana, has its hotel and restaurants, 

Holmenkollen ... ' „ .... ' 

which are well worth visitmg, not so 

much for the food, which is of the simplest descrip- 

378 



Norway 379 

tion, as for the wonderful views. The room in which 
lunch is served, strapping Norwegian girls taking the 
place of the usual waiters, is a copy of the big room 
in an old Norwegian farm. There is a small cafe in 
the grounds of the hotel which is also a model of an 
old Norwegian house. 

Frognersaeter, further up the mountain on which 
is the Holmenkollen, and Ekeberg, are also famous 
for their views, and at each place there is a cafe. 

AFTER DINNER 

Wishing to do in Christiana as the Norwegians do, 
I attended a performance of one of Ibsen's plays in a 
theatre built after the model of a Greek temple. As 
I do not know a word of Norwegian, I did not find 
the performance exhilarating. My experiences at the 
Tivoli were far more entertaining. 

Throndhjem 

Of any restaurant in Throndhjem I cannot speak 
from personal knowledge, but two or Tj^e Britannia 
three of my correspondents have had 
a good word to say for the cookery at the Britannia. 



XXII 

RUSSIA 

Russian Cookery — St. Petersburg — The Clubs of St. Petersburg — 
Moscow — The Moscow Ckibs — Odessa — Kief — Warsaw — Hel- 
singfors — Yalta. 

Russian Dishes 

Russia deserves full credit for having retained a' 
national cuisine, and a very excellent cuisine it is. 
Some Russians are gourmands, and before dinner or 
lunch make a preliminary meal from the Zakouska 
buffet, where potatoes and celery, spiced eels, stuffed 
crayfish, chillies stuffed with potato, olives, minced 
red cabbage, smoked goose flesh, smoked salmon, 
smoked sturgeon, raw herring, pickled mushrooms, 
radishes, caviare, look very tempting on their separate 
plates, and where an array of liqueur bottles with 
the vodka most in evidence keep them company. It 
would be obviously unfair to call all Russians gluttons 
because some of them eat too much, as it would be 
to call them all drunkards because some Russians can 
drink a surprising quantity of champagne at a sitting. 
Soups are the principal contribution of Russia to the 
cuisine of the world. The Russian Moujik, when 
he first stirred some sour cream into his Schi or cab- 
bage broth, little thought that from his raw idea the 
majestic Bortch and kindred soups would spring. In 
England Bortch and Rossolniky the latter a soup in 

which cucumber juice and parsley and celery roots 

■580 



Russia 381 

play their parts, are the only Russian soups generally 
known ; but they are only two out of two-score 
delightful soups of the national cuisine. Batrennia 
and Okroshka are two soups which are supped 
cold ; Uktra is a favourite fish soup, and Selianka is 
a particularly delicate soup made from the sturgeon 
and sterlet. Many of the Russian soups obtain a 
distinctive flavour from roots, or berries, or nuts, 
which is a proof of their peasant origin. A purely 
Russian custom is to serve little fish pasties with the 
soup. These are either eaten separately or put into 
the liquid and beaten into pieces. These pasties or 
patt's are of all sizes and all kinds. They may be a 
tiny scrap of paste enveloping one or two shrimps, 
or the more elaborate Tarteiettes Si, Hubert, or the 
Rastegai which is almost in size a fish-pie, a circular 
casing of very light paste containing a complicated 
fish stuffing, a little round hole in the top of the 
pate being left in order that the gourmet, before he 
eats it, shall put some fresh caviare there. A Rastegai 
is generally cut into four pieces, and makes four 
exquisite mouthfuls. Of fish, chiefly fresh-water fish, 
Russia has an abundance. The sturgeon naturally 
makes its appearance in some form on most menus, 
and so does the sterlet, which is generally cooked 
in white wine and served with shrimp sauce. One 
of the distinctively Russian fish dishes is a pie of 
successive layers of rice, eggs, and fish, which is 
something like our Kedgeree, Cold boiled Moscow 
sucking-pig is very delicious meat. The little pig is 
fed from his birth to the day of his death on nothing 
but cream, and its flesh is pure white. Horse-radish 
sauce and the sharp-tasting cream, which it is a libel 
to call " sour," are eaten with this angelic piglet. 
Roast mutton stuflFed with buck-wheat is a dish by 
no means to be despised. Srazis are little rolled strips 
of mutton with forcemeat inside fried in butter. 



382 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

In England Blinis make their appearance with caviare 
at dinners at all times of the year, and I fancy that 
most Anglo-Saxons think that they are a Russian sub- 
stitute for our crumpets. This is what an English- 
man resident in Russia writes to me on the subject : 
^'Blinis are not only eaten at Cubat's and the Ermitage, 
but they are eaten in dozens and thousands of dozens 
all over orthodox Russia, from the Winter Palace to 
the most humble house — but they are eaten only 
during one week of the year. Carnival week, the 
week preceding Lent. Bl'inis are 7iot like crumpets. 
They are in fact nothing but American buck-wheat 
cakes, about the same shape and weight, if anything 
a little lighter. They are made of wheat and of 
buck-wheat, and are eaten with hot melted butter, 
smetana (thick sour cream) and fresh caviare. There 
are also fancy blinis^ with whitebait, onions, carrots, 
baked into the paste. In one shape or another they 
are devoured by all the millions of Russians twice a 
day for a week. The merchants, who are still a 
special ^ caste ' in Russia, make it a point to eat as 
many as possible, and manage to swallow several 
dozen at a sitting." 

As a contrast, let me give you an extract from an 
article by Miss Insley which appeared in the Daily 
Ma'il^ under the heading of " Everyday Life in 
Russia," and which describes a family dinner in a 
Russian country house^ and the menu of a dinner 
given by Count Lamsdorff at the St. Petersburg 
Foreign Office. The Count evidently kept a French 
chef, and the dinner is curiously cosmopolitan in its 
composition. 

Huitres d'Ostende. 
Consomme au fumet de truffes. 

Petits pates. 
Homards a la " Hohenzollern." 



Russia 383 

Selle d'agneau garnie. 

Parfait de foie gras an Champagne. 

Punch : melon et cassis. 

Faisans de Boheme a la broche flanques d'ortolans rotis. 

Salade laitue et concombres frais. 

Asperges d'Argenteuil, Sauce Mousseline. 

Duchesses a la Parisienne. 

Bombes glacees. 

Fromages. 

Dessert. 

The excellent gourmet who sent me the above menu 
comments thus on the Parfait de foie gras au Cham- 
pagne : " The essence of this dish is to have an 
abundance of the wine jelly well iced in waves all 
round the foie gras.'' This is the extract from Miss 
Insley's article : " We do not have the ' zakousky ' 
so familiar in stories of Russian life, but which I 
have learned only to expect at Russian dinner-parties. 
Here we begin with soup, having with it a tiny hot 
scone with chopped meat inside. The soup, instead 
of the usual cabbage soup, is made of beets, and there 
is thick sour cream for it. The Russian duck is very 
tender and toothsome with pickled cherries ; the 
potatoes bear signs of having been frost-bitten ; there 
is a plate of crumbled green cheese into which the 
Countess puts a slice of black bread and butter, butter 
side downwards, and passes the plate on to her brother, 
who serves himself in the same way ; and there is a 
big decanter of red kvas for all who want it. After 
the duck there are veal cutlets. For the sweets we 
have a concoction which looks like treacle, and which 
is made of the stewed juices of various fruits." 

Iced kvas is a common drink of the country, and 
in the Caucasus some very good wines are made. 
There is a champagne of the Don which often finds 
its way into bottles with Rheims labels on them. 



384 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Surope 



St. Petersburg 

The first-class restaurants of St. Petersburg are all 

French in cuisine. I can only speak from experience 

of one of them, Donon's, a red- faced 
Donon's, Moika 1 -ij- • ' j ^ j ^u i 

building in a courtyard entered through 

an arch. I was given quite an excellent dinner for 
about 5s., but my bottle of claret, cup of coffee, 
and liqueur of fine champagne cost three times as 
much as my dinner did. This, I am told, is the 
case in all the higher-class St. Petersburg restau- 
rants. The set dinner is generally priced at 2 
roubles, about 4s. 4d. a head, and the profit is made 
on the wine. It is the custom to drink French 
wines, and the duties on these are enormous, the 
bottles being cross-gartered with official strips of 
paper, each of which represents a customs receipt. 
A bottle of French Fin ordinaire costs 4 roubles 
50 kopeks, or 9s. 8d., and no bottle of Rheims 
champagne is obtainable for less than 10 roubles. A 
whisky and soda costs i rouble 50 kopeks, and in 
some places 2 roubles. Donon's, so I am told, has 
fallen away somewhat from its old glories, and is 
not as fashionable as it used to be, but I did not 
miss the fashionable element and found the cookery 
quite good. 

L'Ours, the Bear, on the Bolschaya Kononschaya, 
is a very favourite and a very fashionable restaurant. 
L'Ours -^^^ cuisine is French, with a few of the 

Bolschaya best Russian dishes adopted into the 

Kononschaya ^^^^^ Cuisine. 

The restaurant of the Hotel de I'Europe is an 

De I'Euroioe excellent one, and is very popular with 

the upper classes of the Russian capital. 

Contant's, on the Moika, has a garden which, in 



Russia 385 

the great heats of the summer — for St. Petersburg can 
be very hot and very dusty — is a plea- contant's, 
sant spot in which to dine, Contant's Moika 
cuisine is French, and quite good. The restaurant 
was burnt down in 1906, but has been rebuilt, and 
is now flourishing. 

Pivato's is a first-class restaurant. Its specialty is 
luncheons. Cubat's, the accepted name of which is 
the Cafe de Paris, still remains the best pivato's, 
of all the St. Petersburg restaurants. Morskaia 
Cubat's meteoric appearance in Paris, when he took 
the Hotel Paiva and tried to persuade the Parisians 
that the Russian cuisine was the high ^^^^ ^^ vsjn& 
art of the kitchen, was, like the efforts Bolschaya 
of the great men in other professions, ^^^^kaya 
made before its time, and Cubat deserted Paris in 
disgust. Whether Cubat himself is still to the fore I 
do not know, but the restaurant remains an admirable 
temple of French cookery in a foreign land. 

The Belle Vue, which is an alternative name for 
Felicien's, is on the Islands, the beautiful suburb of 
lawns and gardens and park land inter- pelicien's 
sected by water where the rich men of Kammeny 
the city have their summer villas. Its ^^^^^"^ 
situation is magnificent, being just opposite the Czar's 
summer palace, on the Island of Illargui. Felicien's 
was closed when I visited St. Petersburg in the late 
autumn, but Ernest's, another summer restaurant on 
the road out to the Islands, was still open, and I dined 
there one evening. It is affiliated to Ernest's 
the Cafe de I'Ours, just as Felicien's 60 Kammeno 
is to Cubat's. At Ernest's I found a O^trovsky 
big suite of red rooms and a large winter garden in 
which were many palms. A gipsy band played on a 
platform at the end of the rooms, and the leader gave 
himself ridiculous airs. 1 asked for the dinner of the 
day, and was given a choice of soups, a fish which 

2 B 



386 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

was very much like a whiting, but more heavily 
fleshed, served a la Colbert^ beef, fowl, a vegetable 
dish and a sweet, a dinner quite well cooked, but 
nothing distinguished or interesting in it. The 
charge for this was 3 roubles, and as usual my 
humble pint of red wine and glass of old brandy were 
the largest items in the bill. I am told that both 
Ernest's and Felicien's are opened in the winter 
occasionally for the convenience of sleighing parties, 
and I can readily understand the pleasure of coming 
out of a mist of frozen snow into one of their com- 
fortable dining-rooms. 

Beyond the Islands, and well outside St. Petersburg, 

- , , is the Samarkand, a restaurant which in 

Samarkand . ' . 

wmter serves as the pomt to which 
sleigh drives are made. It is not considered a first- 
class restaurant. 

In St. Petersburg I lunched one day at Leiner's, 
a German restaurant on the Nevsky Prospect, which 
Leiner ^^^ very crowded and very bustling, 

18 Nevsky and I ate a German meal which was 

Prospect plenteous for its price, i rouble. I 

drank some Russian Pilsener beer which was quite 
light and quite cool. 

There is a purely Russian restaurant, Palkine, 
Palkine *^^ ^^ Nevsky Prospect, but having 

17 Nevsky walked into it with the intention of 

Prospect ordering a Russian meal, I could find 

no one there who talked any language other than 
Russian, and in despair I beat a retreat. 

The Hotel de France has a luncheon at 75 
kopeks, or is. 6d., which is very popular with the 
Hotel de France, business community of St. Petersburg, 
6 Bolchaia and its dining-room is crowded from 

Moskaia ^2.30 to 2 o'clock. The food is not 

high-class, but of a good bourgeois description, and 
the place is kept by a Belgian, Mons. Renault. 



Russia 387 



St. Petersburg Clubs 

The New English Club, which must not be con- 
founded with the English Club, is the British club of 
St. Petersburg. It has its rooms at British Club, 
36 Morskaia, which street might be Morskaia 
called the Piccadilly of St. Petersburg, and these 
rooms comprise tv/o billiard-rooms, reading and 
writing rooms, a dining-room, and a card-room. The 
Ambassador and all the staff of the British Embassy 
are members, and practically all the clubbable Britons 
in St. Petersburg belong to the club. Englishmen 
belonging to good clubs at home, and introduced by 
members of the club, can become honorary members 
for a week, or temporary members at 5 roubles a 
month. Foreigners (Americans excluded) are not 
eligible as ordinary members, but they can be ad- 
mitted as temporary or honorary members. This rule 
has been passed to prevent the New English Club 
being Russianised as has happened to the English 
Club. As there is a, to a young club, prohibitive 
tax of j^200 on restaurants, the catering of the club is 
done by Pivato's Restaurant, which occupies the two 
floors beneath the club's rooms. 

The Commercial Club on the English Quay has 
Mr. Macpherson as its President. It is commercial 
a luxurious club, and is cosmopolitan. Club, English 
many of the British merchants being chtb^ bvortso^ 
members of it. The English Club, on vaia Naderej- 
the Dvortsovaia Naderejnaiii, has no ^^^^ 
British members. It is the club of the Russian 
aristocracy and of officers in crack regiments. It 
was originally founded by a few Englishmen, but the 
club now is in no way English. 

The Yacht Club on the Great Morskaia is the 



388 'The Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

best known of the St. Petersburg clubs. It is a club 
Yacht Club, of the aristocracy. The present Prime 

Great Morskaia Minister of Russia is the only member 
who does not boast a title. The club takes action in 
politics, and has been known to expel a member who 
supported a party not in sympathy with the views of 
the nobility. 

There is another yacht club on the Islands. 

The Club of the Nobility and the New Club are 
other clubs of St. Petersburg. 

AFTER DINNER 

My week in St. Petersburg in the autumn was not 
the best time for seeing either the summer or the 
winter entertainments, for I was there just between 
the opening of the theatres and the closing of the 
gardens. The various gardens with their restaurants 
and variety shows are the places where the Russians 
amuse themselves in summer, and in the private supper- 
rooms, which are to be found in most gardens, the 
gilded youth of Russia sup till all hours, and often call 
in the aid of some of the troupes which have appeared 
on the stage. In the winter all that is brilliant in 
Russia is to be seen on the nights when ballets are 
danced at the Imperial Opera-house. The ballets and 
the principal dancers are talked about and written 
about more than any other subject of interest in 
Russia. Where at an Anglo-Saxon dinner-party 
politics or music would be discussed, at a Russian 
dinner-party the ballet is talked of. And as in St. 
Petersburg, so it is in Moscow, and to a lesser extent 
in Warsaw. 

Moscow 

Moscow is one of the headquarters of real Russian 
cookery. St. Petersburg in this respect has been 



Russia 389 

annexed by France. Moscow remembers the First 
Napoleon, and its kitchens have not yielded to French 
blandishments, nor are they likely to while the Eagles 
the Buonaparte left behind in the snow are ranged 
inside the Kremlin and the captured French cannon 
are aligned outside the great palace. Moscow has 
gained celebrity for its cutlets of all kinds, for its 
divine cold sucking-pig, and for its cold boiled beef, 
which is almost snow white. The raw material 
used at the good Moscow restaurants is all the best 
of its kind, and Russians tell me that no man is so 
particular as to getting the very best that money can 
buy as the gadabout sons of the rich merchants who, 
both the sons and the plutocrats, abound in Moscow. 
I asked a Russian in Moscow, who was kind 
enough to tell me something concerning the ways 
of the city, what the day of a Russian who was 
going to enjoy himself thoroughly in Moscow would 
be. I was told that he would lunch, and lunch 
amply, about noon either at the Ermitage Restaurant, 
or the Bolskoi Moscovski, or the Slavianski Bazaar ; 
would dine lightly at five o'clock at the Mavritania, 
or one of the other restaurants in the Park ; would 
spend his evening at one of the gardens, the 
Aquarium Sad or the Ermitage Sad ; and some time 
after midnight would sup at the Yar or the Golden 
Anchor while watching and listening to a music-hall 
performance. In a humble manner I trod in the 
footsteps of the Russian of fashion. I lunched many 
times at the Slavianski Bazaar Restaurant, for I 
stayed in the hotel of which this is a part. The 
Zakouska counter from which the habitues select 
a plateful of " snacks," pay for them, and then 
walk about eating them, is a noble collection of 
" appetisers " ; but even more wonderful is the cold 
menu counter, where on ovals of wood edged with 
silver are the salmon, veal, boiled beef, sucking;- 



390 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

pig, giant crayfish, and bowls of cream. Zakouska^ 
Selianka with Rastegai^ cold sucking-pig and cream 
and horse-radish, and an orange salad form a typical 
lunch at the Slavianski. At dinner-time the soups, 
chiefly vegetable or fish, and the great variety of fresh- 
Slavianski water fish, formed the interesting por- 

Bazaar, Rue tions of the meal. The restaurant 

Nikolskaia ^^^^ ^^ ^^iq Slavianski is white below 

and the upper portion is painted in imitation of wood. 
A curious arrangement of light arches supports the 
roof instead of pillars. The most interesting room 
in the Slavianski is the old Russian Hall, painted 
in glaring and barbaric colours, in which the concerts 
are given. The waiters at the Slavianski are in dress 
clothes, and, with the exception of the head waiter, 
who talks a little English and a little German, speak 
Russian only. 

The Ermitage is one of the historic restaurants of 
the world. It has a tremendous staff of chefs and 
sous-chefs, its store-rooms for game are a sight worth 
seeing, and it has a wonderful dinner service of Sevres 
china which is so precious that an extra charge is 
made for its use at any dinner party. I asked a 
The Ermitage little party of fellow - travellers to 
Trubnaia lunch with me, and I hope now 

Plastcliad ^1^^^ J ^^g prompted entirely by the 

spirit of hospitality, and not by a desire to be 
supported by my countrymen and countrywomen 
in a place where I expected to find Russian only 
talked. We found ourselves in a suite of high- 
ceilinged rooms, all light green in colour and 
decorated elaborately with stucco. Large mirrors 
reflected apparently endless vistas ; the Zakouska 
counter was under a fine musicians' gallery ; and 
in another gallery the tables stretched far back. 
The waiters at the Ermitage are all in long white 
tunics with a red cord at the waist, the Tartar 



Russia 391 

dress. On Sundays and holy days the waiters, I 
am told, wear coloured silk garments, but thjs 
I cannot answer for from personal observation. I 
placed my party for luncheon at a vacant table, 
and one of the white-tunicked waiters put into my 
hand a bill of fare in Russian. I could see that 
the dishes were divided into three categories, and 
should have understood nothing more had not one 
of the managers, a kindly person, rubicund, and 
walking delicately in a way which suggested gouty 
big toes, come to my rescue. If he was not French, 
he talked French like a Frenchman, and he explained 
that eggs and fish were in the first section, cold 
meats in the second, and hot meats in the third. 
Of these we had a choice of two dishes for i rouble 
25 kopeks. An omelette and a salmi of grouse 
were what the rnaitre cP hotel recommended, and 
though both of these were certainly not Russian 
dishes, we ate them and were grateful. I began 
very well with the rubicund maitrc fHiotel^ but I 
soon fell in his estimation. I had been a week in 
Russia and I had not tasted any of the Russian 
wines. I was told that both the red and white 
wines grown on the Emperor's estates in the 
Caucasus were extremely good, and the Ermitage 
seemed to me to be exactly the restaurant where 
the best crus of the best years of the best wines 
of the country would be found. I asked the mahre 
cPhotel. He appeared to be insulted, but then 
remembered that I was only an Englishman, and 
could not be expected to know the custom of the 
country. " I believe there are such wines," he said, 
" but we know nothing of them here." Besides 
the large suite of public dining-rooms at the Ermitage 
there are many private ones, some of them large 
enough to accommodate all the guests at official 
banquets which are usually held here. 



392 T'he Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

A good dinner in a private room at the Ermitage 
is by no means a cheap meal. Here is the menu 
of a typical one. The various forms of petits pates 
may be noted as being curious. They are served, 
as I have written before, with the soup : — 

Consomme Bariatinsky. 

( Timbale Napolitaine. 

-n • nA . ; Vol-au-vent Rossini. 
Jretits rates < y- • j - i o • 

\ r riands a la Keine. 

(Tartelettes St. Hubert. 

Esturgeon en Vin de Champagne. 

Selle de Mouton d'Ecosse Nesselrode. 

Punch Imperial. 

Becasses et Cailles. 

Salade, et Concombres Sales. 

Chouxfleurs, Sauce Polonaise. 

Bombe en Surprise. 

Dessert. 

The Bolskoi Moscovski, which is on one of the 
big squares of the city opposite the Town Hall, has 
a spacious dining-room. The waiters here are also 
dressed in the white linen Tartar dresses. An 
orchestrion discourses music during 
Moscovski, the meals. The Bolskoi is a favourite 

Place Voskre- restaurant in summer at lunch -time 
with the men whose families are at the 
Datchas or villas in the country, and who therefore 
take their mid-day meal at one of the eating-places 
in the town. 

TestyofF's, a rather shabby little white restaurant at 
the corner of the Theatre Square, its walls covered with 
Testyoifs, Russian inscriptions, is the best purely 

Theatre Square Russian restaurant of the town, so I was 
told, and the Grand Dukes and other great nobles go 
there to eat Russian dishes. I thought I would 
emulate these great men, and sat down at one of the 



Russia 393 

closely-packed little tables in the dining-room. Not 
a soul in the restaurant could or would speak any- 
thing but Russian, and when a bearded man in white 
makes strange teeth-breaking sounds and puts a menu 
which looks like a collection of dislocated flies' legs 
before one, what can one do ? I tried the principal 
bandit in English, French, and German, and he made 
noises indicating that he understood none of these, so 
in despair I rose, bowed lowly, and went over to 
the restaurant of the National, where they talk all 
languages but Russian. 

I followed the footsteps of the typical Russian 
making holiday so far as to drive out to the Mavritania 
in the Petrovski Park, an enclosure Mavritania, 
with a bandstand and circle of wicked- Petrovski Park 
looking little cabinets particulierSy but I did not feel 
equal to dining at five o'clock, and only drank tea 
there. Other tea-places to which I went during the 
week were the Cafe Philipov, a big caf^ Philipov, 
white building with plate-glass windows, Tverskaya 
half confectioner's, half cafe, which is on the Tver- 
skaya, the principal street of the city, and a pleasant 
place near the Slavianski Bazaar, the name of which 
utterly beat me, where little chalets formed tea or 
dining rooms. 

Like my Russian example I went to the Aquarium 

and Ermitage Gardens, which are to Moscow what 

Earl's Court is to London, and my first evening 

about I A.M. I supped at the Yar, a res- „, „ 

1 Ti 1 -T-i ^r 1 The Yar, the 

taurant m the rark. 1 he Yar, the Golden Anchor, 

Golden Anchor, and the Strelna, the the strelna, 
, , ' r 1 1 Petrovski Park 

latter, the most gorgeous or the three, 

being open in winter only, are the Bohemian supping- 

places of Moscow. The Yar has a special celebrity 

for the cooking of sterlet. It is a long saloon, its 

floor space covered with little tables, and it has at one 

end a stage. While I and a companion waited and 



394 ^/^^ Gourmet's Guide to Europe 

ate caviare from a littie pot embedded in ice, the stage 
was occupied by variety performers, some of them 
EngHsh, some American, some French, some Russian, 
but none, with the exception of a Russian girl who 
sang in her own tongue, of the first class. Three 
sterlet were brought to us alive and kicking in a long 
deep silver dish covered with a napkin, and we made 
our choice of them. The mahre (Vhbtel^ who attended 
as though this was a solemn ceremony, advised that it 
should be cooked with white wine sauce. While we 
waited for the sterlet we tried a bottle of Russian 
champagne, which, wonderful to state, was on the 
wine list. It was labelled Excelsior, was dry, and 
much resembled the wine some of the Rheims firms 
sell for the public-house trade. The sterlet when it 
arrived was served nobly ; its back was garnished with 
parsley and sliced lemon and the claws of crayfish, 
and in its white wine sauce were crayfish flesh and 
truffles and little mushrooms. If a good eel from a 
clear river had all its oiliness taken from it and if its 
flesh became so light as to be almost gelatinous, then it 
would taste like a sterlet. A sturgeon served with 
champagne or a strong rich sauce cannot compare to 
a British salmon or a turbot, nor can the great white 
fish of the Don ; but a sterlet, it seems to me, stands 
very high on the list of small fish delicate to the 
taste. 

As a contrast to the Russian dining-places, the 
restaurant of the National Hotel gives one a dinner of 
the cosmopolitan type whiph one finds 
m those great caravanserais or which 
Ritz may be considered the patron saint. The fur- 
niture has all come from Oxford Street or Totten- 
ham Court Road, the china from Paris, the waiters 
from Germany. Every language under the sun is 
talked by the maitres d' hotel. A sterlet with a pink 
shrimp sauce gave the Russian touch to the dinner, a 



Russia 39 r 



specially ordered one, which I ate there. This was 
the menu : — 

Cavare frais avec de Peau de Vie Russe. 

Consomme a la Colbert, 

Sterlet a la Russe. 

Mouton Braise. 

Gelinotte roti, Salade. 

Haricots verts a TAnglaise. 

Peches a la Bordelaise. 



The Moscow Clubs 

The English Club of Moscow, though only English 
in name, is hospitable to travellers who are suitably 
introduced. Its members are of the aristocratic 
classes. It is situated on the Tverskaia. 

The Merchants' Club is on the Great Dimitrovka. 
The Club of the Nobility, which has a magnificent 
suite of rooms for balls and receptions, is also on the 
Great Dimitrovka. 

Odessa 

At the great port on the Black Sea the restaurant 
of the Hotel de Londres Yastchouk is one of the best 
in Russia. Yastchouk was the name of yastchouk 
its late proprietor, who died in 1902. 11 Boulevard 
He was a real lover of good cookery, Nicholas 
enjoying nothing more than to serve an exquisite 
meal to a real connoisseur. When any gourmet 
came to his restaurant, he would ask him whether 
he came from the north or the south. If from the 
north, he would suggest a real southern meal, with 
Rougets a la Grec and the delicious Agneau de la'it^ 
unobtainable in St. Petersburg, and a ragout of auber- 
gines and tomatoes. If from the south, he would 
recommend a good Bortch with petits pates, or a slice 



39^ T7/^ Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

of Kouleh'iaka^ a great pot-pie full of all kinds of good 
things, or some milk-white sucking-pig covered with 
cream and horse-radish. Yastchouk has joined the 
majority, but his restaurant is carried on in the same 
spirit as when he was alive. 

Most of the other hotels have restaurants attached 
Bruhns, 16 Deri- to them. The Bavaria and Bruhns are 
bassovskaia popular restaurants, the latter being in 

especial favour for the mid-day meal. 

During the summer a restaurant is opened in the 
Alexander Park and a band plays there. 

A travelling gourmet writes thus to me concerning 

Odessa : " There is a capital restaurant attached to 

„ ^ , , „ ^ the Hotel du Nord, where the cuisine 
Hotel du Nord . „ , , I , i t j 

IS really excellent, i know the JLondres, 

but, speaking personally, I should give the restaurant 

at the Hotel du Nord the preference." 

Kief 

At Kief the Restaurant Semadeni is a rendezvous 
Sdraadeni, of all foreigners, and most of the papers 

15 KrecMchatik of all the countries of Europe are to be 
found there. 

Warsaw 

The Restaurant Liefeld in the Hotel Bruhl used 
to be the best dining-place in Warsaw, but it has 
Liefeld, 12 "°^ h^tn surpassed by the new Bristol. 

Ulicahratoiego A correspondent writes to me : ^^ The 
Kotzebue j^^^g^ dining-hall with its wonderful 

electric arrangements reminds me of Aladdin's cave 
Bristol, °^ ^ palace in a pantomime. The food 

44 Krakowskie and the service can be commended and 
Przedmiesvke recommended. The prices are absurdly 
small. For about 2s. I have just eaten some Filets 
de Soudac Polonaise (with butter and egg sauce), 



Russia 397 

some Cepes a la Creme and some cold meat, cut from 
the joint in my presence, with salad, cucumber, &c. 
A French maitre (Thotel^ and everything clean and 
smart." As proof of the cheapness of the food my 
correspondent sends me two bills of fare of the dinner 
and supper. Three dishes for supper may be selected 
any time between 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. for 100 kopeks, 
and a fourth dish for 40 kopeks more. Turbots, 
soles, trout, oysters, and lobsters are extra. The 
variety of fish on the menus is noticeable : — 

Consomme a i'Orge Perlee. 

Barschoque. 

Petits pates. 

CEuts froid Cardinal. 

Saumon en Belle-Vue. 

Mayonnaise de Tanche. 

Mousse d'Ecrevisses. 

Esturgeon a TAmericaine. 

Filets de Soudac Polonaise. 

Sielavy grilles, Sauce Moutarde. 

Gigots de mouton aux flageolets. 

Turnedos aux TrufFes. 

Cotelettes Pojarsky aux petits Pois. 

Salmis de gelinottes. 

Dindonneaux bardes. 

Cailles sur croutons. 

Cepes a la creme. 
f Filets de veau a la gelee. 
Froid- Chaud froid de gibiers. 
[Galantine de Volaille. 
Salade d' Oranges. 
Glaces Panachees. 

For dinner four dishes may be selected for i rouble 
25 kopeks between 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. from such a 
menu as this : — 

Creme St. Germain. 
Poule au Pot. 



39 8 T'he Gourmefs Guide to Surope 

Consomme aux Nouilles. 

Petits pates. 
Saumon, Sauce Mousseline. 

Brochet farci. 

Filets de Soudac Joinville. 

Jambon braise au Mad ere. 

Bitkis de Veau Cacha. 

Pintades braisees aux Choux rouge. 

Noisettes de Chevreuil, Sauce Poivrade. 

Filets piques a la broche. 

Poulardes bardees. 

Grives au genievre. 

Salade — Compote. 

Macedoine de Legumes a la Creme. 

Eclaires au Cafe. 

Glaces Tutti-Frutti. 

And this is a lOO kopek lunch, four dishes being 
allowed each person : — 

Consomme de Yerchis. 

Barchoque. 

Petits pates. 

Saumon a I'ltalienne. 

Mayonnaise de Siguis. 

Coquilles de Homard a la gelee. 

Sielawy Meuniere. 

Esturgeon au Vin du Rhin. 

Filets de Soudac Portugaise. 

Rosbif a la Broche. 
Ragout de Mouton Printanier. 

Poitrines de Veau farcies. 

Poulardes sautees au paprica. 

Bitkis de filet StrogonofF. 

Cervelles frites, Sauce Tomate 

Gelinott.es a la Creme. 

Pirojkis a la Paresseuse. 

Omelette aux Cepes. 

CEufs Bercy. 



Russia 399 

[ D indes — Perd reaux . 
T^ ., Jambon. 
^'•''"'iRosbif. 

Langue de Boeuf. 
Gateaux — Compote — Glace. 

A travelling gourmet writes : " A good word may 
be said for the restaurant attached to the Hotel de 
I'Europe, nearly opposite the Bristol Hotel de 
in the Krakowski Faubourg, which is I'Europe 
excellent, and very well patronised. Of course it has 
the usual Zakouska counter, with its innumerable 
liqueurs and delicacies. On first entering one has 
almost the impression of going into some monastic 
refectory on account of the numerous heavy and severe- 
looking columns supporting the ceiling ; in fact, it 
more resembles the aisles of a church than a chic 
restaurant. The prices (for Russia) are reasonable." 

Helsingfors 

Many Anglo-Saxons find themselves at one time or 
another at the Finnish seaport. All the principal 
hotels have restaurants. In the Opera- operakallaren, 
kallaren, which forms part of the New New Theatre 
Theatre, a military band plays at night, and the supper, 
though it is as simple as a Swedish meal, is quite well 
cooked. 

The Alphyddan, which is in the Djurgurden, the 
delightful garden which is on the Bay Alphyddan, 
of Tolo, is in summer the pleasantest ^^^^ o^ Tolo 
dining-place in Helsingfors, 

Another very pleasant little summer restaurant is 
on the island of Hogholmen, where Restaurant, 
are the zoological gardens of the town. Hogholmen 



400 The Gourmef s Guide to Europe 

Yalta 

The Crimea to an Englishman vaguely suggests snow 
and hardships, but none of the Rivieras of Europe is 
more delightful in spring or autumn than that which 
stretches from Livadia to Feodosia, and has Yalta, 
Simeis, Aloupka, Alouchta, Soudak, and Feodosia on 
its shores. Of these luxurious villages of sea baths 
the Englishman is most likely to find himself at 
Yalta. 

The Russian Riviera is just as expensive as the 
Hotel de Paris, French one, and the man who dines at 
Q^iay the restaurant of the Hotel de Paris in 

a pavilion up to which come the wavelets, will get 
Parisian cookery and Parisian prices. 

The Cafe Florin, the restaurant of which juts out 
Cafe Florin, into the water, is another attractive and 

Q^^y expensive dining and lunching place. 

There is an amusing restaurant in the public garden 
of the town. 



Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &f Co. 
Edinburgh dr= London 



/ 



is^r 



\?Ai: 



